Heather Spears
The Art of Growing Older
is far from art. To be art
it would have to be chosen and
no one chose this.
Do you remember, not so long back,
feeling really well? maybe after
the second cup of coffee, towards 10am
Blake called it the moment in every day
which Satan cannot find when your cells
hummed with their own pleasure, and you rose
willing and simple as flour and aprons and did
whatever it was? Now, when you notice,
your head’s a bit thick always, there’s a tiny
tinnitus pricking out the silence
bright as the surgeon’s strobe, so you
converse with yourself to cover it
and every new wince
has to be questioned: Will this be chronic?
and you stop discussing ailments
as if they were rare and elsewhere and you don’t
fall down any more, you have a fall,
and the best you can do
is work, work, and forget the low grade
gradual sour un-ease which is after all
life, and you should be grateful,
later you’ll be so, and say Remember
when there was no pain?
it would have to be chosen and
no one chose this.
Do you remember, not so long back,
feeling really well? maybe after
the second cup of coffee, towards 10am
Blake called it the moment in every day
which Satan cannot find when your cells
hummed with their own pleasure, and you rose
willing and simple as flour and aprons and did
whatever it was? Now, when you notice,
your head’s a bit thick always, there’s a tiny
tinnitus pricking out the silence
bright as the surgeon’s strobe, so you
converse with yourself to cover it
and every new wince
has to be questioned: Will this be chronic?
and you stop discussing ailments
as if they were rare and elsewhere and you don’t
fall down any more, you have a fall,
and the best you can do
is work, work, and forget the low grade
gradual sour un-ease which is after all
life, and you should be grateful,
later you’ll be so, and say Remember
when there was no pain?
Page(s) 6
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