“My seventies were interesting and fairly serene, but my eighties are passionate.”
—Florida Scott Maxwell
◊
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.
◊
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.
◊
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.
◊
The plot gets more intense the more I age
As life’s last chapter moves towards life’s last page.
´◊
The Geriatric Pilgrim: Traveling the Landscape of Faith and Grief 
The rainbow image at the end of your prose projects hope that your introspective poem has a happy heavenly ending. 🙂
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Oh my, I relate so strongly to this, Rick! Turn 80 in 5 months. Iâve never made much of the â0â birthdays, or even 65. But 80 feels absolutely fraught with a freight of fear (howâs that for alliteration?). Probably doesnât help that my father died at 81 of heart failure/attack; his father, mother, and brother all died of heart disease as well; and I just got a pacemaker implanted which has complicated my physical state in less than positive ways. So aware of the things that really matter to me, as you are.
Blessings,
Karen
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Brilliant. I am 80 and I get it.
Although I am somewhat robotic with a nightly CPAP, hernia meshes x 2, lens implants, crowns and a bridge on my teeth, inserts in my shoes, digital, AI hearing aids on my ears and glasses on my face that tint with sunlight. Any questions?
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Perfect description of old age!! I’m 88 and dealing with the beginnings of Alzheimer’s. But as I look backward, I do see that I have lived Micah’s description of what God wants of us: to do justice, to love mercy, and now I am being challenged to walk humbly with my God. But in between, I now see how often I failed even those I loved the most simply because they were very different from me. But sometimes, we did learn from each other through those differences. One thing I know now for sure: do not judge, lest you be judged. We live in an unfinished universe on a planet filled with unfinished people. Evolution proceeds too slowly to be perceived at the time. And setbacks are needed to make things bad enough for enough people to accept change.
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