Monday, December 9, 2019

Crepuscular Rays ~ Monday, 9 December 2019

"When you are old and grey and full of sleep,"
~ W. B. Yeats 

When hope diminishes, day turns to dusk, 
how spring stirs emotions winter covers, 
enveloped in a thick blanket of snow 
no one wants to shovel, the hardened ice, 

you know when you can't touch your toes, 
   your back 
only bends down so far, the pain intense, 
under the care of a kind physician 

a prescription for a year of yoga, 
recommended over the painkillers 
everyone else seems to think does the trick, 

old age bites your ass even at forty, 
losing your perfect vision for cheaters, 
dopey-looking reading glasses that change 

adulthood from headaches a bookseller 
never has while reading to accepting 
difficulty in the fact the dishes 

grate on your ears as sounds become 
      too loud, 
remember your lost youth, Hollywood clubs, 
empty and grey as old film noir movies 
you now watch capture your fascination, 

attention to the words younger folk speak, 
no excuses that you've lost your hearing, 
diminished, yes, but not completely lost, 

full of sorrow as your body stiffens, 
under the doctor's instructions, you go 
lift the veil of the esoteric art 
lingering in books and squalid basements, 

only when you find a bright studio, 
full of natural light, do you decide 

sleep is not the cousin of death, but breath, 
life is found within your mobility, 
even the corpse pose doesn't sound morbid, 
entering your fifties, time awakens 
possibilities to grow back to health...

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