This line struck me in my heart. How life can seems like a blur and also, the so much of our lives are on automatic pilot and can be like accident after accident... and then the humbling physicality of accidents and age.
I am so intrigued by how the perspective of the poem is written from Old Age as if it is a sort of character playing out its role in the play of his life. His words are so carefully chosen and I love how he speckles words in there to indicate the slowness of old age and the need for support on multiple levels.
As a woman in her 50's I see the horizon and vulnerability of life. I also was lucky enough to have grown up with my grandmother and also great grandparents which gave me a broad perspective about life while young. (Of course I did not know it then.) Yes, much to ponder. I love how you wrote "That window Fram, I shall lean on it and let the poem surround me." So poetic in itself.
This poem pulls me two ways. First, the weariness, the tiredness, the attrition of old age, is so well captured. In the morning, the first waking moments, the inventory of functions.
In the other direction, it pushes me to think, Ok, you're old, but you're getting up and making these precise observations. That is something to be held and cherished.
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.
"Ideas that collapse
at the first touch of attention'.
That's me now, not all but enough to notice.
"Numbed from the blurred accident
Of having lived,"
This line struck me in my heart. How life can seems like a blur and also, the so much of our lives are on automatic pilot and can be like accident after accident... and then the humbling physicality of accidents and age.
I am so intrigued by how the perspective of the poem is written from Old Age as if it is a sort of character playing out its role in the play of his life. His words are so carefully chosen and I love how he speckles words in there to indicate the slowness of old age and the need for support on multiple levels.
So much to ponder on in this - especially for someone old like me. That window frame, I shall lean on it and let the poem surround me.
As a woman in her 50's I see the horizon and vulnerability of life. I also was lucky enough to have grown up with my grandmother and also great grandparents which gave me a broad perspective about life while young. (Of course I did not know it then.) Yes, much to ponder. I love how you wrote "That window Fram, I shall lean on it and let the poem surround me." So poetic in itself.
This poem pulls me two ways. First, the weariness, the tiredness, the attrition of old age, is so well captured. In the morning, the first waking moments, the inventory of functions.
In the other direction, it pushes me to think, Ok, you're old, but you're getting up and making these precise observations. That is something to be held and cherished.
This is not a complaint. It's a great poem still.
At once, haunting and mysteriously comforting. Present time is elusive yet always beckoning us to its altar.
"Sitting on the edge of the bed..." Lord, I did exactly that this morning.
Nothing like a Ted Hughes poem to start the day.
So true, this poem sketches the outline and then
fills in some of the details.
BABY BABY BABY
{from 'I Got The Feelin'
If I was wrong
About Simon Armitage,
Commander of the British Empire
Who said, without irony, I think
'Poetry is a form of dissent'
I'm not going to waste time
Arguing about it
I can't be arsed
Most nights I go out
And dance
The Empire made a famine
Out of Ireland and India
Dependents out of Africa
Opium slaves of China
Maybe Simon agrees
Maybe Simon disagrees
I've just battered Ted Hughes
In the carpark
By The Moon
A discotheque
James Brown
James Brown
Then leaves the spaces for each of us to enter.
Thanks for sharing this