Ponderable and poem for Sunday, November 29, 2009
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Alan Harris
Nov 29, 2009, 1:28:05 AM11/29/09
to thinkers-dai...@googlegroups.com
Months come disguised as days, and swindle us sweetly of years.
Getting Old
(A Burlesque)
It's awful to get old, it is.
Today I got pretty winded
rocking away in my chair
so I went upstairs for a nap
but tripped over my beard
which is the same color
as the fog before my eyes.
Then I couldn't remember
whether I'd been upstairs
or downstairs, and worse yet,
it didn't seem to matter.
I no longer care whether
there's life after death,
now that life before death
has become so confusing.
Where did I put that drool rag?
I must switch to a new one,
since we're in a new month.
I've missed church services
for several weeks in a row
because they hold them right
in the middle of my night
at 10 a.m. Whenever I do go,
I'm so groggy I can't tell
the Lord's Prayer from
the Lord's Supper, and I'm
apt to get to thinking so deep
that my wife says I breathe
too loud and she nudges me
to break my train of thought.
So this is what it comes to.
When you're a child you
think you'll never get old,
and when you're old, you
forget you were ever a child.
I catch myself rambling
a lot and hope that people
won't notice because maybe
they are nearly as old as I am
or they might be sympathetic
or at least look the other way.
I guess this drool rag's still okay.
Today I got pretty winded
rocking away in my chair
so I went upstairs for a nap
but tripped over my beard
which is the same color
as the fog before my eyes.
Then I couldn't remember
whether I'd been upstairs
or downstairs, and worse yet,
it didn't seem to matter.
I no longer care whether
there's life after death,
now that life before death
has become so confusing.
Where did I put that drool rag?
I must switch to a new one,
since we're in a new month.
I've missed church services
for several weeks in a row
because they hold them right
in the middle of my night
at 10 a.m. Whenever I do go,
I'm so groggy I can't tell
the Lord's Prayer from
the Lord's Supper, and I'm
apt to get to thinking so deep
that my wife says I breathe
too loud and she nudges me
to break my train of thought.
So this is what it comes to.
When you're a child you
think you'll never get old,
and when you're old, you
forget you were ever a child.
I catch myself rambling
a lot and hope that people
won't notice because maybe
they are nearly as old as I am
or they might be sympathetic
or at least look the other way.
I guess this drool rag's still okay.
*******
Alan Harris
You're invited to view two YouTube videos by Ine Braat based on my poems: "Mother's Secret," "Two Windows," and "Seeking until Found."
More writings by Alan Harris can be found in An Everywhere Oasis:
All ponderables and poems in these e-mails were authored by Alan Harris. Sharing is fine.
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