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21 January 2019 Eulogy for Seventeen

This week, we’re back to a new poem by yours truly. Interestingly, whereas the opening segments of The One posts on the first two Mondays this month are about birth, today’s poem is about the juxtaposition of life and death – the two great matters. Actually, the “juxtaposition" is between youth and old age, but close enough.

Last summer I attended my 50th high school class reunion in central Wisconsin in a town called Marshfield. I was seventeen when I graduated from high school, so that got me thinking about the last fifty years, as well as the zero-to-thirty years I may have left. (One just doesn’t know the “when” spoken of in the poem.) I suppose the one exception is an attempted suicide, but even with that intention, not all endeavors have the desired result.

I’ve attempted to speak the truth (as I understand it) with a light touch. That should please some Almanac readers who have asked me to “lighten up.”

Eulogy for Seventeen

                                    The seventeenth year now seems a visitation
                                    Elders at senior centers join in commiseration
                                                about aches and pains and surgeries
                                                and how they lived their well-remembered seventies

                                    At seventeen, unnatural history begins
                                    whose end, though predictable, does not divulge the when

                                    But back to seventeen when all things can be mastered
                                    and few rarely see eventual disaster

                                    ‘Tween seventeen and eighty, all manner of
                                                conjured partners and multi-offspring dominate
                                                late parties, days of toil, leave no time to contemplate

                                    After seventeen, years slide smoothly through narrow
                                    channeled gates - green water, mosquito-desperate
                        
                                    Roaring alive on the planet of seventeen
                                    All aglow on the continent of twenty-three
                                    Full of grace in the poised country of thirty-three



                                    Fifty-five arrives with its deeper lines on faces
                                    Sixty-eight leaves all years behind with no traces

                                    Next, dead-reckoned for an islet of seventy 
                                    Inevitably, an island tree shinnied up to eighty

                                    Seventeen once throttled life like ‘twas forever
                                                assumed true and fine adorned with youthful trimmings
                                    Now, as the unfailing elegy draws nearer
                                                we spy greying tinges stirring cliff-hanging fears

                                    The anxious disbelief in decades not in years
                                    The shock of staring into the rearview mirror
                                    Seventeen believes this staring truth must be false
                                                refusing to relinquish youth’s sweetness’ thrall
                                                wrapped in memories close and warm before the fall

                                    If truth be told, an end will come, but no matter
                                    because we know not when that end comes pitter patter
                                    
                                    Each of them emerges. Seventeens shine briefly
                                    Then darkly through the looking glass comes their leaving

Background:
Reunions – high school, family, military, etc. – definitely bring up thoughts of former times, and put those times in a vaulting context. When young, most people feel that time goes way too slowly: when will I get out of these diapers; when will I been done with school? how long before my birthday? Christmas? And on, and on, and on. Of course, at some point that varies with the individual, time begins to speed up. Maybe it’s at 18, or 21, but certainly most of us feel the tick, tick, tick at ages thirty, forty, fifty – every decade turning us over into experiences based on every decade before.

Many decades ago, a valued teacher of mine advised me to “live with death looking over your left shoulder.” I’ve tried to heed that advice, meaning living so I would have minimal regrets, not pass adventures by due to fear, and doing my best to be kind and compassionate to others and to myself. Like most, I only see the measure of these things through the eyes of others, and as I understand their understandings of me. I’ve often thought that people who are easy on themselves reach old age with fewer regrets. At least they’ve mostly pleased themselves. On the other hand, those who tend to be hard on themselves reach elder status with perennial questions, illusions that they have not met imaginary goals, and wondering what could have been done differently, better, more completely. Both camps have one thing in common: time is usually too short. 

A wise and revered monk once lay dying on his bed. His followers gathered around him, weeping and praying for him. One monk leaned close to the dying man and asked, “Venerable one, do you have any words for us?” All those present expected the holy man, who had lived a quiet life of prayer and deep enlightenment, to utter something profound as he left his mortal coil. He said, “I don’t want to die.”

Perhaps there is a lesson here? No matter how long or short a life, almost all persons come to the end with the monk’s statement. Simple as that. Profound as that.

Exploration 1: Is this poem humorous? Morose? Both? Neither?


Exploration 2: What does the following line refer to: “channeled gates- green water, mosquito-desperate”? This line is probably the only one in the poem that is ambiguous. 


Exploration 3: Did you notice what grows smaller with each stanza starting about in the middle of the poem?











Comments

  1. Humorous,yes. The meter sees to that. And bittersweet as well. Lost innocence. Educated naïveté.
    Channelled gates must be mom and dad.
    What grows smaller? The amount of time the poet has left.
    Another dying sage said "I know what life is. Soon I'll now what it is to be dead."
    Not something he'll care to share."

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