Classic Poem

Handcuffed by time,
I travel across this broad
beautiful America-
mesas, deserts,
peaks with clouds caught
upon them,
the Continental Divide
where a dropp of rain
must decide
whether to roll east or west
like the rest of us.

I speak to a group
of avid, aging Californians
about daring to embrace
the second half of life.
The passions of the old
are deeper
than any wells
the young can plumb.

Meanwhile, you are dying
in New York Hospital-
your beautiful face drained
of blood,
your arms too heavy

to seize the day,

your shining eyes
dimmed by pain
& drugs to dull it.

You have boycotted food,
yet all you can do is apologize
to your grieving children
for the trouble you cause
by dying.

'Don't worry, I'm fine,'
you say, eternal mother.

Solitary as you will ever be,
our love cannot save you
from this last loneliness,
this last sea voyage

where no one
dresses for dinner.

Meanwhile
I am listening to a doctor
who claims we can all live
to be a hundred,
a hundred and twenty,
If only we expand
our arteries with exercise,
our genitals with sex,
our brains with crossword puzzles,
poems & proverbs . . .

Wingless, we can fly
over death
if only the body
-that laggard-
consents.

I suppose the dropp of rain decided
to roll west with the setting sun,
taking you along.

The Californian doctor is quoting
Victor Hugo now:
the eyes of the young show flame,
the eyes of the old, light.

More light, Doctor!
How can we accept
time's jagged jaws
even as we are being eaten?
How can we accept
the extinguishing of eyes?

Doctor-
is death the aberration.
or is life?

And as for love-

why is it never enough
to save us?