I grow old…I grow old
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
And so I ate a peach for lunch, with brie and 8-grain baguette. And, even through brain-fried by heat and over-exertion, I remember Prufrock.
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One of my old folks’ home neighbors invited me to dinner last night, along with two other even older neighbors. Good ol’ fashioned brisket and gravy. Challah. Breyer’s ice cream for dessert. They think I’m an angel. They also think my mother is spoiled and takes advantage of me. (Ya’ think?)
I didn’t tell them that now my mom is ensconced (under protest) in her new place, I’m laying the law down for her. She’s got to live by the rules that I and my brother set down for her safety and our sanity. She doesn’t like it. But then, again, there is little that she ever liked anyway.
But still I run around still moving her stuff, moving me — still moving me. Too much stuff but not the stuff I need for an empty loft space.
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The peach was lussccciioouuus.
I cut my hair a little punk. A punk Crone. Who says it can’t be so.
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And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.”
T.S. I love you. Still.