They’ve started appearing on the backs of my hands: the dreaded (so they say) age spots. These large-size versions of the freckles I’ve lived with all my life come as a surprise. Evidently my body is much older than my brain imagines my self to be.
Yes, I quit being a redhead ten years ago. Somehow the crown of snowy white up top never says “age” to me, but rather “fashion choice.” The extra pounds around my middle? Well, I’ve staved off the inevitable for my whole life so far, and now? I don’t have many years left to eat cookies. Recent medical scrutiny didn’t turn up anything likely to do me in right away. So, I’ll don my What, Me Worry? suit and march off into the new year.
That suit? Fabric of gratitude, with embellishments of faith, hope, and love.
Yes, I could produce a Cheery Barb sort of essay. But right now, as celebrity obituaries poke holes in my past, and signs of aging show up in my person, I’d rather acknowledge the right and privilege we all should claim, that is, permission to let go. This poem appeared in a recent print issue of I-70 Review where no one will see it except the tiny population of poetry readers–the only audience tinier being the one here at my blog. I’m grateful for you. And I wish you a year ahead filled with the light of wisdom and love. That’s the gift of a lifetime.
REBUTTAL
Do not go gentle into that good night…—Dylan Thomas
Go gentle, darling, into that good night.
Allow the anodyne to ease your pain.
We only walk from darkness into light.
Refuse technologies designed to fight
what’s called a battle with a calm disdain.
Go gentle, darling, into that good night.
Let no one claiming hope refute your right
to own your body and your soul’s domain,
to move in love from darkness into light.
Your hope is beckoning beyond the fright-
ful needles and machines. Who can explain
the letting go that leads into a night
of wonder, the horizon in your sight
where nothing of remorse or fear remain,
where darkness shatters in eternal light?
Insist on being left alone despite
all human argument. Let them complain.
Go gentle, darling, into that good night.
We only walk from darkness into light.
Barbara Loots
Published in I-70 Review, 2023
“I don’t have many years left to eat cookies.”
That’s my philosophy of life.
There are ever so many things I want that I can’t afford to buy.
But I can afford sugar.
So I’ll take it.
Thank you for sharing your wisdom so beautifully! May 2024 be a year full of love, smiles and blessings for you are all whom you treasure!
Wear your spots proudly. Now you can hide in the dappled shade and watch the world go by, so long as the cookies crunching do not give you away. (But that gorgeous hair will give you away without a hat.) You are winning at life. Be well.
Lovely, lovely words as usual about one of my favorite Dylan Thomas poems. This line made me laugh out loud–so true for poets. “This poem appeared in a recent print issue of I-70 Review where no one will see it except the tiny population of poetry readers–the only audience tinier being the one here at my blog.”
Me again. Like you, I am suffering from those brown spots I never thought I’d have. In fact, they led me to write a poem, which I am appending for the infinitesimal audience you mentioned. Poem will probably get more work, and may end up rhyming.
The Hands of My Three Great-Aunts
Their skin was liver-spotted, bruised,
wrinkled, the veins so prominent
I was repelled. I was a child
and they were old, long-widowed, shapeless,
generous, kindly, full of tales
and folklore, old Southern ladies
who never put a hat on the bed
in all their lives, because that was unlucky.
To me, sitting under the table
as they gossiped and played canasta,
they seemed old enough not to mind dying,
gesturing with their ugly hands,
those brown spots, blue ridges I could not
imagine my hands would ever have,
at an age I could never be.