What Happens
What happens when we grow so old
That our thoughts lose their balance, trip, head over soul's heels,
Our memories forget their very raison d'être,
Our sensibilities, emotions groan to a crawl, stall, fall,
Our bodies' most fundamental activities —
Breathing, touching, walking, hearing, smelling, speaking, seeing —
Flail, in frail failure,
Wander into the one-way caves of aging's desolation,
Where even grave-bats can't translate our screeching desperations?
What happens when we grow disenchanted, so terribly despairing,
That we dread waking into one more day,
Wish we could learn to short-circuit the cog-works
Keeping our hearts beating with too-precisioned rhythms,
Let our clocks wind down, drift into quietus?
What happens when, at ninety-five, despite our "vitality,"
We're certain we've outlived our lives, overstayed our fates,
And plead to be relieved of our uselessness?
Can't we just jump off our ledge, into salvation, saying amen?
11/13/10 - (2)
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