Aging is an ever-schooling process with regular tests.
Extreme aging is the important test on all that was learned.
The luck is in being able to show up for that test.
I search those independent stars for answers
Then down against the ink-black shadows of the woods to the twinkling fireflies,
stars themselves, dancing with a glow that is fickle.
I mournfully accept that another summer
is already mid-way gone.
But even now with brown freckled hands
covered in onion-skinned parchment
I still have no answers to the most important questions.
Why this tiny point in the Cosmos?
Why me?
Where do I fit in this paradigm?
Was there a Master plan?
Can I ask more questions?
As the velvet morning creeps in,
I listen for an answer and hear only the song of the frog.
I hear only a dry leaf dancing with the breeze.
I hear the staccato machine-gun chirp of the cardinal
Waiting for his morning coffee.
I can ask all the questions that I want.
I bargain for more time.
Maybe this autumn will bring my answers.
I hug each season greedily to my heart
as if it were my last.
i think there are some questions we will never answer...and some that are answered by our actions that we never realize...i do know we are here for a reason...and in our living we work that out...smiles.
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad you are writing these poetic phrases.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful!
ReplyDeleteMe too!
Hanging on to every minute.
Some ponder life questions. Some just live.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful poem by excellent photo.
ReplyDeleteIt's fun to ask the questions, and why shouldn't we? I come up with different ones all the time. And in the long run the answers don't matter because they too, will change. Loved this post!
ReplyDeleteYour cardinals drink coffee? Nuts!
ReplyDeleteSometimes i have to lay the questions down and just enjoy the season, it can get to be too much.
ReplyDeleteNicely done. I like how you put our own aging process in with nature. Then there are the pictures you weave into your poetry which adds description to your poem.
ReplyDeleteI read your post
ReplyDeleteand why do tears come to my eyes.
Then your words
answer me.
Much further down the path of
life is this one
and yes I cannot stop the thought of
how many more seasons will be granted
so I also hug each one closely.
A lot of people ask these questions and I guess religion answers them for them. I don't do religion, don't like it's answers. I don't worry myself about the why. Would knowing the answers make this life more or less beautiful, more or less tragic? No, I don't think so. Life is what it is, beautiful and awful and everything in between. It just is and that's OK with me.
ReplyDeleteGlad each morning I wake, still looking for answers. Still hoping I may yet go out a better person than I was.
ReplyDeleteLove your words, so true.
Oh - me too, me too! There are always more questions than answers. As long as we can ask them, we're alive! Your poem evoked so many pictures in my mind's eye. Happy summer - mine has been cool (sometimes even cold) so far.
ReplyDeleteYou said it so well - "Aging is an ever-schooling process with regular tests."
ReplyDeleteAnd this morning my dear friend, just five years my senior, goes to her doctor to find the results of recent tests and to learn if she must give up her car for good. Her children (who never even ride with her are leading the charge because their son is turning 16 and they want the car) will be with her at the doctors. All her friends (who ride with her and trust her) won't be with her. I anguished with her on the phone last night and she said, "Don't worry sweetie, the Lord will take care of everything." Wish I had her faith.