21 May 2018 – Staring at Seventy

Seventy or seventeen? The question is to be or not to be one age or another. Just as the twenties in a life can be rampant with growth and experiences, so, too, the seventies can be the fruition of all that hard-won wisdom with just enough awareness of limited time to hurl one into late-life adventures, be they creating art, traveling wide, or just dreaming by a fireside reading a good book, or taking up a pen and writing poems. I don’t know how old our readers are (nor most of our writers) so, it’s hard to say whether this week’s poem has a chance of carrying the meaning of passing years – of what the widespread phases of life have to say to one another.

Staring at Seventy

                        “Yesterday, I was seventeen,” as is often said

                                    Tomorrow, or someday soon, they will say, “She’s dead”

                        Here I am – at a higher number - one that I thought I’d never see

                                    especially from my days of hubris – now a dimming luminosity

                        Now, seventeen’s ways seem foolish with all plans so grandiose

                                    that age does not foresee what’s coming and disdains all that is morose

                        Staring at seventeen from the other side of sixty-eight

                                    at seventy, only eighteen more and that makes eighty-eight

                                    and out from the grave eighties we know it’s hard to make

                        From seventeen I’ve leaped to seventy, and I stare remorseless at seven-oh

                                    At seventeen I was a fool, but thought there was nothing I didn’t know

                        From where I stand, I see seventy staring back at me

                                    with cocked head and one eyebrow arched

                                    a smirk tickling one corner of its time-ward mouth

                        Here seventeen yields demurely to all that comes and all that goes

                                    barely noticing seventy’s stare or what it means to be old

                        “Just as well,” I sigh and keep staring, eyes locked on seventy

                                    those blank-black eyes so apropos a shade for an enemy

                        Old age, sickness, being missed when dead

                                    we can expect all these, as the learned Buddha said

                        Surely, we can anticipate these certainties even though we want them not

                                    At seventeen we snort at such and give them not a thought

                        We can now stare back at seventeen with grins and many chuckles

                                    at our antics, lovers, and hanging on with whitened knuckles

                        Seventeen seems spotless from this vantage place

                                    blind to all sins yet to be, when seventy sears wrinkles on our face

                        The crisp violence done by years now gone and past

                                    between the two no navigation tools or colored maps

                        At seventy, seventeen feels so like one breath, the briefest visitation

                                    soon seniors gather talking of aches and pains in commiseration 

                        Still, isn’t this the bliss of one and seven?

                                    not yet bound for hell and not yet ship-shape enough for heaven

                        All the grace notes of being less than twenty-one

                                    so many iridescent bubbles popping before we’re finally done

                        Seventy moreover brings a modicum of wisdom

                                    and becoming wiser passes far beyond ‘isms and opinions

                        So, I say, “Seventy bring on your attacks!

                                    I’d rather go on forward than turn to follow younger tracks

Background

For some reason, I’ve always been aware of time passing, and what it means to be a bit older with each year completed. I remember tears welling up during my twenty-first birthday celebration. Then it seemed all downhill for me.

Recently, a friend and I had a conversation. He was driving and I was the passenger. Because it was in my field of vision, I looked at my reflection in the side mirror. “Good grief, I’m old,” I quipped to my friend. “Every time I catch my face in a mirror, I can’t believe how old I look.” (It’s always a surprise because I don’t feel anywhere near as old as I look.) “Really!” he shot back. “I thought I was the only one who did that – the mirror thing. It’s really shocking, almost like seeing someone else.”

“Staring at Seventy” presents a back-and-forth between a very young adult and a person on the edge of being an elder. When young, we tend to be dismissed, and often hear the phrase, “When you get to be my age . . .” When approaching old age (and worse as age progresses) we experience dismissal, isolation and often disrespect. So, who are these people looking at seventeen as inexperienced and not to be relied on, as well as viewing older folks as out of step, and possibly senile? Of course, they are the “middle-aged,” arrogant and certain of their superior place in life. But wait a minute. I’m being unfair categorizing very large groups of people, and that exercise can never be accurate. So, why not form your own views using the explorations below?

Exploration 1: Think seriously what, for you, is the ideal age, whether it is already past, or up ahead, or even right now.

Exploration 2: Although today’s poem takes a lighter look at aging, what are the poem’s more serious meanings?

Exploration 3: Can aging be anthropomorphized?  

Jack Pine Savage