We who with songs beguile your pilgrimage / And swear that Beauty lives though lilies die, / We Poets of the proud old lineage / Who sing to find your hearts, we know not why ... (James Elroy Flecker)

28.8.22

Sitting with my Thumb in My Mouth

I am sitting with my thumb in my mouth

as I used to do when I was a child,

to comfort myself. Now I am an old woman,

I find my way back to that instinctive method

of making myself feel better. For babies,

it must resemble the breast. What is it 

for the old? I have seen other elderly people

do this; is it true we all regress, into 

second childhood? I don’t feel less

aware, haven’t lost the power of thought,

but maybe I’m just closer now, again,

at this other end of life, to the basics.

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