WHERE THE FINAL WEAPON IS A CHAIR NOT LOVE

MY POEMS TODAY ARE ABOUT AGEING AND HOW people respond to the process. This effort was prompted by the blog post of Janet Weight Reed on her take on ageing. (See her post right after this in my Timeline, and in her "My Life as an Artist (2)".)


(For my Life Partner in My Twilight Years)


"And these few precious days, I'll spend with you....these golden days, I'll spend with you. ---September Song"


FIVE POEMS TO GROW OLD BY: WHERE
THE FINAL WEAPON IS A CHAIR NOT LOVE


"Ah, to be old and a mariner come upon that restful cove,/ Where the final weapon is a chair not love;/ To be old, cher ami, is a gallant slouching on that chair/ Some porch of the heart grown insensitive to care ------ “Houses are Better Off Without Porches Here”, From my "A Theory of Echoes (Selected Poems)", UST Publishing house, 2009)


1. WINDOW GAZERS

Sitting on her Florentine chair
Atop the red-tiled stairs, the sirocco
Breeze playing with her ivory hair,
She awaits her turn to say hello:
A caudillo-like half-raised wave
And a schoolmarm’s smile on her
Waxen face, a smirk at times to save
Her some chagrin falling off a chair
While she wags childlike to say:

"Blow a kiss to your window-waving
Girl, say au revoir for now, and pray
That as she grows up, won’t stop loving.
"And they do grow and go away,
And you’d be left sitting on a chair
Wondering why they have flown
Like swallows, and hope would care
To come back and perch at sundown."


2. CUP ON THE BENCH
“Favorite spot,” Nguyen Cao Tran pointed
To the bench on Lincoln Green before
He waved me bonjour the Montreal way.

“Favorite spot for wife and me…drink
Tim Horton Coffee from across,” he winked,
Now unafraid his accent might betray
A Viet Minh rasp from Saigon days,
A shrapnel buried on his nape: “Still smoke
Camel sticks from GI Joe friend in Frisco.”

He looked away when I remembered to ask
About Nguyen Bao. “Isn’t she walking
With you this morning? It’s spring, mon vieux!"

He mumbled: “She gone…far away now,”
And shuffled away, his knapsack slung
Like a rifle crooked on his flaccid hand.

A single cup of Roll-up-the-Rim teetered
On the bench the next day while I waited.
No cups on the ground, the bench was naked.


3. LUCY DOES NOT LIVE HERE ANYMORE
"Caminare. Fare una passeggiata.
Eh, come stai?" She shot back looking askance.
Perched birdlike on her stroller, she inched
Her way to the middle of the cul de sac ---
Where I tarried, a wide wave our ritual,
I called out, "Come va, Nonna?"

Her andador tilted off the cobbled strada,
She stared blankly, but smiled nonetheless
In the courtly manner she never failed to show
To neighbours and strangers alike.

Her sallow skin becomes her regal face,
I thought, but the same face furrowed,
Her eyebrows arched impatiently then;
She demanded: "Are you the police?
Or are you my son with a Florida tan
Hiding as usual from me? I called them
From 2441 because I could not find
My house, nor my keys. Was just walking,
Was just enjoying the sun for once.
Crazy Calabria weather. Rain. Sun. Wind.
Sun. Snow. Cold. Hot. Aiee... Who are you?

“2441 is your house, Nonna. And you have
A daughter who will be here tomorrow.
And this is Mississauga. I am Alberto
With the nipotes Chloe, Louie, & Marie at 2330.”

"Aieee...dolce angelo! My angels.
How are they? E come va, amore mio?
Caminare. Fare una passeggiata.
O, com `e bello, O sole bello!
But you will help me find my home,
Won’t you? Won’t you? Amore?"

A lilt on her voice, she flirted rather coyly.


4. EL NIDO DESOLADO
(Para mi Madre)
Los pajaritos están dejando su nido;
el invierno de su vida ha venido
tan muy temprano!

Mira! Mira! Madre mía.

Tan fuerte ahora, sus pájaros
están volando a puertas desconocidas;
están volando tan lejos para que
nunca jamás devolver y quedar en la casa
de corazón triste, ahora casa abandonada,
nida desolada, madre mía.

O mi madre querida!


5. OMNI SOLI SEMPER*

“I just wish your Father would come and take me soon. I am tired,” Mother said and closed her eyes. --- From a Visit to Poro Point, Writer’s Notebook, 2009

The flannel blanket was an armour:
it shielded me through nights I needed you
to defend me against the onslaught of day
when I had to rise to know
that the children were all in bed last night
dreaming their dreams or fleeing nightmares
where flailing they fall from precipices
and you were no longer there to catch them
nor were they there to fall in your arms.

Even the sunrise assails me.
I beg for sunsets now and nights to hide me
from the rush of day when finally I ache to see
them home and you beside me asking
how I made it through my day.

When will you come to take me home?
The flannels have shrunk and, threadbare,
They could no longer keep the intruding light away.

----------
*All alone, always
MORE ON AGEING.
An Excerpt from a speech I addressed to some senior citizens in our City of Mississauga: "Like the troubadour who has earned his meal at the table, I will sit down now, hoping someday I may again find myself among you, reading poems about today and some of my impressions of you and I growing yet older not only in aches and pains, but also, and more importantly in wisdom, love, and spirituality. "
Excerpt from a song: "You and I will travel far together/ Watch the evening star together.../ We may never get to heaven/ but it's heaven at least to try."
Excerpt from William Wordsworth's "Ode to Intimations of Immortality":"Whither is fled the visionary gleam/ where is it now, the glory and the dream?/ Though nothing can bring back the hour/ of splendour in the grass, / of glory in the flower, we will grieve not,/ rather find strength/ in what remains behind."