Approaching the Narrows - P Gregory Guss

[Lawrence Robinson]

Approaching the Narrows 
  
That is the greatest fallacy, the wisdom of old men. They do not grow wise. They grow careful.    
     - Ernest Hemingway,  A Farewell to Arms.


At 73 -
The great temporal fringes of age have begun

Infirmity has a new voice 
A resident squatter 
Serely, intentionally defiant 
Cloaked in narrowness and decay

My once sturdy legs held permanence as strength, 
Now they leak-out a steady dirge, an SOS: 
“Don’t rely on me, seek stability elsewhere” is their mantra

“No more round-trip bookings” 
The sign states: “From here on out, 
All Passages are One Way”

Today I wet myself, 
The short drive home 
Proved now too long
A pile of soiled clothes lie 
On the floor soaked in shame

Perhaps I should now walk-a-staff,
A simple-one, caned from 
Juniper Wood or Italian Fir

A staff, an appendage akin the
Three-legged walking one from the 
great riddle of man 

Now I stand humbled 
On the outskirts of diapers
Suiting-up for advanced humility 

Boldness in not even a guest

I don’t know anymore
What passes through my front door 
It too has vanished 
In the pile of stench 
Which we know as loss
 
I trusted in the god of permanence which now,
like a monk, begs for daily alms of any sort 

Perhaps this is the age of surrender
That I was warned about?
Where the last life-line has been tossed 

Perhaps this is my new teacher, 
A shrouded-head in silhouettes,
Who has not yet introduced itself

Me and my soiled clothes 
Wait, wonder and listen 
Trembling in the agelessness of 
what god has forsaken


	- P Gregory Guss
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