THAT AGE

If I live to be that age

I won’t confine

the painter in me to a studio

to re-paint,

ad infinitum,

any elegies to the Spanish Republic.

If I’ll need a wheelchair

but have limited resources

I may not be allowed the luxury of electric scaffolding

to reach the upper limits of room-height canvases.

I won’t start playing music again.

I’m through with all that noise-making and rattling –

the old bones vying with the drums

and chukka-chukka rhythm guitar.

Hasn’t my joyful noise been joyful enough

to remain in the past,

where all those old songs refuse to go away,

where people crave to hear them

not because of what they signify

but because that’s what they’ve always done

and they refuse to get old,

much less dignified.

If I should become more the outdoorsy gentleman,

(with the understanding that I’d wear a lot more tweed),

come autumn

I think I’ll be happy counting leaves,

inventorying spider webs,

or negotiating with a pesky stump in our landscaped lawn

that is rotting at a slower rate than me.

For the obligatory strolls I’ll be having

my walking stride will be so scientifically measured

that I’ll know the exact number of steps it takes

to go the mile from my house

to the end of Raccoon Drive

then on to Fire Station #3.

I won’t need to count steps

as much as I’ll need to make mental notes

of the changes in our suburban landscape

or assess the damage sustained

by that old rusting bucket-of-bolts in the sun.

I’ll see the occasional line of cars

making their way

to the neighbors’ house in the cul-de-sac.

I’ll mark the progress of the shrubs

planted last spring

by Ms Something-or-D’ruther.

I’ll chase the stray cats that take food from mine.

I’ll fix light switches,

refinish old lamp tables,

and spray-wash the patio (again).

The light will change

from brilliant summer glare

to a softer autumnal gold.

Shadows will lengthen and shorten

as they’ve always done.

I’ll wonder about who may have cast the first shadows

on this land buttressing the bayou.

Were they the indigenous peoples

that held off the swarms of mosquitoes?

Did they coat themselves

with the clay that eventually

gummed the molds at the brickyards?

The questions I’ve carried with me

my entire life

(do I belong? and where?)

will quietly fade –

with a thought remembered

being trumped by forgetting it –

and I will fade

as all will fade

against dead then deader light.

-jim hill (3-20-2015)