Month: July 2025

Geriatric Passion

Published on by geriatric pilgrim4 Comments

“My seventies were interesting and fairly serene, but my eighties are passionate.”

                                                                                                            —Florida Scott Maxwell

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Yes, but not like some geriatric stud

who’s still able each night to rock and roll;

Instead, imagine some gnarled tree in bud,

A blazing fire reduced to one red coal.

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Three barred owls in a tree, a rainbow,

My sleeping wife, a grandchild’s happy voice,

A doo-op tune, dark chocolate, will now

Bring forth ejaculations of clear joy.

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But then I have these night sweats full of fear.

Each day brings new regret for my old wrongs.

I rage for reasons that remain unclear

and weep at maudlin films and country songs.

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The plot gets more intense the more I age

As life’s last chapter moves towards life’s last page.

´◊

Duende

Published on by geriatric pilgrim6 Comments

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Duende:…[T]he “bitter root” of human existence, what Lorca referred to as “the pain that has no explanation” … and the source of much great art.—Christopher Maurer

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After the rain, the trees are weeping,

tears glistening in the setting sun. 

And suddenly

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I feel the fierce force flowing through my veins 

along with the red cells and white cells and platelets, 

to and from the heart (the center of grief, I heard somewhere). 

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I wail once more my family’s demise:

 my father’s frightened eyes, my mother’s waxy hands,

  my daughter’s last labored breaths.

´◊

I recoil as if for the first time at

old failures, sins, embarrassments, what-ifs

 that float before me like dead fish.

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I watch my friends diminish—

cancer, Parkinson’s, heart problems, Alzheimer’s—

I shave an old man’s face.

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This week, I’ll pray, write a poem, plant flowers in the family cemetery, meet friends,

take grandchildren for ice cream, work in my garden, make love to my wife, 

tenacity momentarily victorious. 

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Still, coursing through my triumphs like a deep and dark river,

demolishing and nourishing as it surges to the sea, 

Duende.

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