PONDERING OLD AGE

When I am old, with scallop jaw, and chin slack;
Blotched hands like shores from which tides
Have ebbed; bowed bones, bleached and shrunk;
Hair, once black with copper life in sunlight,
White…
Shroud for a brain begging death.
Will there be a spark for tomorrow in my eyes?
Or the embers of remembered yesterdays?
Hope hanging in the cortex, quartered and drawn,
Stillborn...
Is bleakness in their eyes
Because arid lids are taut and bald?
Eyelashes are shades when emotions flicker in
Eyedepths. On deeply private matters eyelids are
Shutters…
Is that why old age seems so often
Sleeping? I hope my aged mouth will wear
A wreath reminiscent of smiles set there,
Not a grim scimitar of bitterness and regret,
As I wait……

© Lynne Harris