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