Recompense

[ctalerico]

In a sun room sits a man:
Liver spots, skin tags,
Palsy tremors of his bony hands;
Snow-white hair and
Long dark hairs from earlobes,
Cloud-covered rheumy aged eyes
And quivering lips from which
He whispers in a shaky hoarse voice:
"I'm tired."
While wheeled back to his room he thinks:
O Youth, where has thou hid?
How hast old-age out-bid?
Yesterday was but youth.
Today over-ripened bitter fruit
Rotting here I await the flies.
With solace knowing:
Everyone eventually dies!

[goldenrod]

A bleak, but sometimes, an accurate description of old age...the fool's gold and sometimes the fool's golden age.

goldenrod.

[ctalerico]

Thanks, I appreciate your remarks and taking time to share them.

I hoped there was an implied ironic comparison with the imagery I tried to quickly build: a man sitting in a sun(ny) room and the quick turn to bleakness, as quickly as youth seems to turn to old age, at least for those who are near the end of their lives. And might this man not be a poet? His thoughts (last 6 lines) hopefully suggest more of a poet's cadence and choice of words than might be those of a typical old man. If that becomes apparent in the reader's mind, then hopefully his/her next thought might be: is this the old man/poet's poetic justice (revenge?) thus echoing, perhaps, the title? So maybe this old man hasn't yet lost it all despite that his bodily decay might suggest otherwise? He still has his poet's brain and creativity even if no one but he is still aware of it.

That was the occasion for the poem and, hopefully, looking at it with that perspective delivers the poem out of darkness and into the light, thus returning cyclically to the sun imagery suggesting life's cyclical nature--from infancy we become again infants in old age (Shakespeare's seven stages of man)?

[ampoule]

ctalerico...I think you accomplished that and more, the delivering out of darkness into light. Whenever I happen to visit a nursing home, I often wonder about the stories and poems that may be churning around in the heads of the residents. Anyway, I liked your poem very much.

[ctalerico]

Thank you ampoule. It's always helpful to get feedback on one's work, whether positive or critically less so. Of course, it's even more gratifying when a reader enjoys one's work. Nice the way you put it and, like you, I believe we all have poems churning around in our heads... how can we not? We are each our own best poem in a metaphysical way. So glad you liked my effort.



ctalerico...I think you accomplished that and more, the delivering out of darkness into light. Whenever I happen to visit a nursing home, I often wonder about the stories and poems that may be churning around in the heads of the residents. Anyway, I liked your poem very much.