Stirs its ashes and embers, its burnt sticks An eye powdered over, half melted and solid again Ponders Ideas that collapse At the first touch of attention The light at the window, so square and so same So full-strong as ever, the window frame A scaffold in space, for eyes to lean on Supporting the body, shaped to its old work Making small movements in gray air Numbed from the blurred accident Of having lived, the fatal, real injury Under the amnesia Something tries to save itself--searches For defenses--but words evade Like flies with their own notions Old age slowly gets dressed Heavily dosed with death’s night Sits on the bed’s edge Pulls its pieces together Loosely tucks in its shirt
"Old Age Gets Up" is a poem by Ted Hughes, published in his 1979 collection "Moortown Diary."
82
Amazing
I'm still here
Good thing
couldn't see the future,
I might have freaked out,
run away,
leaped off a high building
into a volcano
or a tornado
or maybe a electric grid
or nuclear reactor
or tsunami
or a glacier
or a star
yea, even a black hole,
all of which I did anyway.
How many different lives
in one?
Let me count.
if I can.
pre school,
elementary school,
college,
law school,
working for my father,
practicing law,
becoming a writer,
becoming a poet,
becoming a mystic,
8 women close to me
saw parts of it,
8 entirey different lives.
with entirely different
remarkable women,
not easy for them
being with me,
wasn't easy for me
being with me,
then came #9
I was out to pasture
she had other plans,
and spells,
she's a witch,
who'd have ever thunk?
weaving, weaving, weaving,
waking up parts of me
I had lost, forgotten, thrown away,
or never even knew where there,
like my writings and poems
and soul drawings had done,
still sometimes do.
I was praying for the Lord to take me,
my star had run its course,
she has other plans,
I quit making plans long ago,
tired of God laughing at me,
but now I look forward to
waking up mornings,
she did that,
she does that,
and neither of us
can go to sleep at night,
until she rubs my back,
conks us both out,
zzzzz
Ted Hughes is an underrated poet, thanks for posting this.