The Possibilty of Peaceful Ageing

The Possibility of Peaceful Ageing
(on entering my ninth decade)

Now I am new, 

softly writing the winds of the past

into history

where they may blow unheard

taking away the rains and storms 

and even also

the fierce fires that sometimes

in towering beauty

flared and razed

leaving scorched ground, with ruins

to be repaired or be abandoned.

I turn and face forwards

into a calm and gentle sunlight

over fields and a river.

There are trees.

On one side is a three-humped

cloud-catching mountain.

From the other I smell hints,

tangy and fresh,

of the near ocean. 

A few white clouds

sweep the sky like angel wings.

‘Follow me!’ she cries,

that Goddess to whom

I have given my heart and allegiance,

and I step with assurance 

into the realms of light, 

calm and radiant.

‘Here is joy,’ she tells me,

‘embrace it. You’ve earned it.’

And I dare say I have. But I pause.

While strife remains 

I have a duty of healing.

Also, when I sit in my armchair 

a small black cat

climbs on to my lap –

dead Selene, who settles 

as she did when she was alive.

Or I find a letter 

from an old love, long gone,

and linger over it, failing to destroy.

‘Forgive me, Lady,’ I say. 

‘I am not yet ready

for blissful oblivion.’

Rare sample of Egyptian terra cotta sculpture, could be Isis mourning Osiris, (raising her right arm over her head, a typical mourning sign). (Public Domain)

Written for Thotpurge's Poetry Tuesday #2 – New