Carping, Part Two

Yesterday’s carping about turning 60 next month brought commisseration from here and there, and impatience from poets who are past that and gearing up for the next leap. Here are two from Ellaraine Lockie:

BIRTHDAY REBELLION
—Ellaraine Lockie, Sunnyvale

The cinema super complex celebrates
senior citizenship for us at fifty-five
A birthday gift given
on every big screen outing
One I awaited with frugal fever
usually saved for a Nordstom sale
A three-dollar bribe into early old age
From some baby boomer bureaucrat
An executive decision
made in politically correct mode
That I suddenly can’t accept

The incorrectness of it
unbalancing more than a checkbook
As I take the ticket
from a person with pimples and braces
Who doesn’t even ask for an ID
And hasn’t heard of Jack La Lanne
or Mary Higgins Clark

Seniors who haven’t bought someone
else’s senility schedule
Maybe sniffed fear like me
of danger in self-fulfilling prophecy
And followed the scent of self-protection
to places that honor the elderly
at an acceptable age
Say seventy-five

____________________

AFFIRMATION
—Ellaraine Lockie, Sunnyvale

To every thing there is a season
and a time to every purpose under the heaven.
“Turn Turn Turn” by Pete Seeger
from Ecclesiastes, Chapter 3, Verse l

Kids grow up (in theory)
Parents grow down (in practice)
before they finally die
Pets grow replacement lives forever
The partner grows not at all
Stunted in his muddy status quo

I outgrow the giving
Thirty something subservient years
Filtered through female compost
That nourished sprouts
Cultivated offshoots
Teenage blossoms
Carried weight of overripe fruits
Enriched their perennial deaths

I’m depleted now of decay
Of equipment to make it
Or desire to invent imitations
Gravitate toward plastic plants
Silk flowers, stuffed animals
Glass goldfish, TV dinners

I sow seeds for regrowth
outside sterile soil
Free like the breeze
that scatters the seeds
A wild weed dancing life
around a dormant tree
Self-indulgence fertilized
by its own impending death

__________________________

Thanks, Rainy!

White Lotus Poetry & Prose Workshop
at Hollyhock Retreat Center
Cortes Island, British Columbia
With Ellen Bass
July 2-7, 2006

Ellen Bass writes: I'm looking forward to teaching at Hollyhock July 2-7, 2006. To see more of this gorgeous place and to register, please visit hollyhock.ca. If you have questions about the workshop, please contact me at ellen@ellenbass.com or my assistant, Shalom, at victors75@rattlebrain.com or at 831-423-3064. In this workshop we will allow ourselves to extend our roots deeply into the mud of our experience in order to give voice to our writing. This is an opportunity to meet the poems and stories that gestate within us and to engage our most valuable resources—attention, courage, precision—in bringing them into being. There will be ample time for writing and time for sharing and response, hearing what our work touches in others. We'll help each other to become clearer, go deeper, express our feelings and ideas more powerfully. From beginners to experienced, all writers are welcome.


THE FLY (An Anacreontic)
—William Oldys (1696-1761)

Busy, curious, thirsty fly,
Gently drink, and drink as I;
Freely welcome to my cup,
Could’st thou sip, and sip it up;
Make the most of life you may,
Life is short and wears away.

Just alike, both mine and thine,
Hasten quick to their decline;
Thine’s a summer, mine’s no more,
Though repeated to threescore;
Threescore summers when they’re gone,
Will appear as short as one.

__________________

Thanks, Bill!

—Medusa

Medusa encourages poets of all ilk and ages to send their poetry and announcements of Northern California poetry events to kathykieth@hotmail.com for posting on this daily Snake blog. Rights remain with the poets. Previously-published poems are okay for Medusa’s Kitchen, as long as you own the rights. (Please cite publication.)