Since youth
you beamed golden
son of light, with gilded heart
tall and taciturn
sage words glided
from your sleek and silvered tongue
thick, agile thumbs mollified wood
and plucked your gleaming lyre
with equal dexterity
virility and elegance lived harmoniously
in your brave and lumbering form
the golden child, the good son
the responsible one, bearer of burdens
fatherhood came naturally
you shepherded your patients your students and children
with a keen moral sense
with a warm, rumbling bass-baritone
obligation, duty did not weigh you down
but propelled you through life
with relentless energy
waking early on weekends to tend the garden
returning to the kitchen midday
shirtless and pink with sweat
perspiration dripping in rivulets
through your forested chest
and from a shelf of sable, bushy brows
enormous thumbs edged black with soil
you pulsed with plant joy
leaning against the counter
to savor your home-grown tomatoes
and chastise the children: go back and weed the garden
you did a poor job the first time
passionate patriarch
giver of lessons
corrector of table settings
you held things in their proper place
you freed yourself through work
upheld your commitments
kneeled and prayed each Sunday
dragging us, sullen and stiff-collared
to bend and sigh in wooden pews
the master, the competent one
doctor, carpenter, musician
you shimmered with symmetry
your angles squared
should's and ought's
flung from your arrow tips
locus of wisdom and culture
eternal father
to which we all aspired
perched reservedly on your alabaster throne
a keen crow, casting judgement
crowned with laurels, ripe and green
and so --
how strange and unsettling
this ending of days
as years descend
your throne has rusted
into a sallow rocking chair
a lumpy recliner faded beige
smelling vaguely of urine
matted with cat hair
these last days
when mastery recedes
when what was high is brought low
when any hint of hubris
has dried and caked
flaking in shards from your listless limbs
before our eyes
you have returned to childhood
nearing infancy, even
your body, contracted
circles back to its origin
having followed the arc of decades
gaunt, white and withered
you spend your hours
dragging your aching form, stiff and stooping
in an ever-tightening radius:
armchair, kitchen table, porch, toilet, bed
your mind no longer yearns to be elsewhere
to discover the world
to greet the dawn
for hours you sit under tree shadows
watching the bluebird flit back and forth
retreating to its pinewood house
the one you lacquered years ago, but have forgotten--
was it ten or twenty?
surveying your garden, humbler than it was
in your midlife glory
sunflowers mocking you with their brightness
with their cheerful, boasting youth
your lyre, with strands once ringing radiantly
now lies rejected, withered and limp
your tune grows weak and sour
we tire of your misanthropic melody
repeated stories churning in rickety ruts
your presence is a void in the house
you empty space with your weather-beaten soul
listless silence surrounds you
radiating a low-percolating anxiety
suffusing the air like incense during mass
even sunshine that sifts through the screen
is burdened with nostalgia, with ambiguous fear
your crisp bow, once taut
arrow poised and sky-aimed
droops wearily, lacking a target
your bones sag with despair
laurel leaves dry and crumble
in your peppered pale, fading hair
your world, once boundless—
how it has diminished
how fear has gripped you, taken hold
boxed you into your house
then your bedroom
soon your life will shrink
to the borders of your bed
a sullen, lingering house guest
you have over-stayed your welcome in this life
gone is the brightness of youth
its vast, enthralling horizons
its endless peaks of possibility
the beauty of the body gives way to decrepitude
skin decays, erupting with growths, brown spots and moles
a stubbled beard rimed with woe
mind punctured by misfortune
it is not just the aging, but the fear
why have you written your story with a tragic end?
why must you cower in your corner,
trembling with anguish?
you have incarcerated yourself
life becomes narrower and strangles you
the room gapes, choking with apprehension
skin slathered with foreboding
we are unsettled by your angst
annoyed by your fretting
dragged down by your despair
shifting uncomfortably
in the tense silence you breathe
desiring to flee your space
the air curdling with disapproval
your hours flitter away
as you obsessively count them
clutching routines:
the hour of waking, of bathing, of chair-sitting
of meals, television watching
the time for medication
for the dog to be let in and then out, and then in again
for flannel night clothes and sleep
and the long, blank, dark hours
where the mind feverishly wanders in half-dream
you were the symmetrical swan
the loping white wolf
you were the honor and the light
the Bach variations, they suited you
your angles squared, culminating properly in cadences
how you tilt out of balance now, your footsteps unsteady
the mind crusted with repeated thoughts
you cling desperately to your wife
who has become your mother
waking in perspiration at the hour of the wolf
Am I still here? Where have I gone?
Have I yet descended the dark hole?
but unlike a child, we find you not endearing
and are stirred by an astonishing lack of compassion
the hour grows dull
the decisions have been made
all the words have been spoken
all the books have been read
your eyes, too faded to take in new words
your ears, too deaf to discern fresh anthems
entombed by blindness, fatigue
by the ever-present pain
the deeds have been done
the bridges have been burnt
the love has been given
there will be no new loves, no adventures
no songs and no poems
you have whispered your last prayer
it is the end of days
your light of gold
dims in descent
until it crumbles, vanishes in the horizon
of perpetual obscurity
of unfathomable night
its glimmer remains
only in our memories
