Shadow Dance
Poetry by Gill Schwartz
OLD
Old. Flesh bags loose around my bones.
Glands atrophy, but needs live on.
Willingness to face the new day wanes,
But this mummy's life persists.
Old. What had been central to my ways
Now are gone. The place, the occupation,
The ones I loved and that loved me,
All are consumed in Time's flame.
Old. Not fulfilled, nor ripened in my years.
What I'd hoped to happen didn't. What I didn't, did.
I got to seek and stumble under imposed goals,
But never, never found the path to me.
Old. All these are but waiting hours.
Boredom stalks me through the dozy days.
Never learnt just joy at being. Now, invalid with age,
Bereft of work, nothing lingers to fill my soul.
Old. Never so alone, so engulfed by that
One fact looming before me: Death.
Arms outstretched, it beckons me on. And I question
If I've really done all the things I came to.