Gods in Suburbia: Apollo at the End of Days

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