Beautiful Old Age
It ought to be lovely to be old
to be full of the peace that comes of experience
and wrinkled ripe fulfilment.
The wrinkled smile of completeness that follows a life
lived undaunted and unsoured with accepted lies
they would ripen like apples, and be scented like pippins
in their old age.
Soothing, old people should be, like apples
when one is tired of love.
Fragrant like yellowing leaves, and dim with the soft
stillness and satisfaction of autumn.
And a girl should say:
It must be wonderful to live and grow old.
Look at my mother, how rich and still she is! -
And a young man should think: By Jove
my father has faced all weathers, but it's been a life!
- D.H.Lawrence
Oh, really, D.H., you should bite me. Go find your own comforting apples and leave us old people the fuck alone. Like we have to go on living for you forever. Grow the fuck up. My knee is sore.
2 comments:
Show me a person of any age who's tired of love.
DH, in this poem, offers the words,
'ought to be' and 'should' as though he is setting up a quandry, an ambivalance to be addressed later in the poem,, however,,,this was not to be.
One could, if one were taken to piggybacking, 'Complete' the poem and harken to these issues, leaving the reader with more of a sense of question,, which, imho, is the essense of writing,, allowing the particiapnt to delve through their own psyche to impart closure.
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