Colorado Rockies

 

Sitting at the trailhead, I watch youth, vigor, and stamina pass me by, wearing Lulu Lemon tops with matching shorts the color of wildflowers.

The mountains stand stoic and resolute. They know my path and there is no pretending otherwise. We are the same. The weather has worn our edges and though theirs will take longer, we will both die of the same natural causes. Erosion and decay.

They say birth is the one thing everybody dies of. They also say that if you could feel all the pain that creeps up with age in one moment, you would die of shock. Isn't it amazing what we learn to tolerate as long as it's a slow build? The mountain with the climbers on its face and blizzard at its back. Me with my twisted trunk and cracked branches. Both of us at the mercy of time.

I say to my mom, and must to myself the same, "Make the most of the time you have left." To focus on the erosion is to rob yourself of the best it's going to get...for tomorrow the wind will howl again and the water will run across surfaces, creating deeper creases.

Today may be your best day, Annabelle. Get out of your head....

even if being in your heart hurts like hell.

Needing My Friend

Yes...we're gambling!

We’ve only our hearts to guide us this day,

where once we were more form than substance
now some kind of strange piñata

the bones of us covered in paste, held as body by crepe paper.

But no matter all that. Our hearts have GROWN

in equal measure to our deterioration and they have become

the governing force.

It is our hearts that beat us through those daily walks

to grease what’s left of our bitching joints.

Beneath these sagging breasts
beats the warrior child, the gator’s jaw

     fighting for
           releasing not
all that remains. We will

reach for our face to face moments...

two old souls, coming ‘round to a new innocence.

Our playground awaits.
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Crossing Over

It should be one hell of a moment
the kind where fireworks mark mandatory celebration
and the champagne cork knocks an eye out.

Naw, that's not right.
It should be an epiphany
that halts you dead in the tracks of your every day practicality
head slapping double take - back and forth,
yesterday and tomorrow no longer at odds
because the day has come
oh my friends, the day has COME...
when you have more past than future.

But there is no rite of passage in this slow decline
We move toward it, then past it
with nothing more than a nod to another day spent
the same way yesterday was spent
and the day before that
because we just don't know
can't know
the date or time
when our end is closer than our beginning.

I've crossed over now.
I don't know when, exactly, but
I'll not live this age doubled.

I was born in April,
born again in February,
and somewhere between presents and cake
the candles started burning backwards.
,
,
,
,

Make Love To Me Now

quickly now

before our bodies turn on themselves

before I can no longer kneel between your legs

cat arched in supple curves

or bend into a position of acceptance

before time races from game show to game show

and we check mark the hours by our medications

before what drains from our bodies is no longer sweet

make love to me quickly

like a beast with uncontrolled temper

an appetite with a ravenous mouth

impatient hands, rough hands

scraping my skin with dirty words

make love to me slowly

the way I browse ancient books

fingers trailing along spines

cherished, reverent, sweet

young, as a stick against white washed pickets

make love to me now

tuck the scent into the album of our sleeves

to pull out like a tissue

gauzy in the dementia of our aging

dab at our eyes with the memory of twisted limbs

when our bodies lie flaccid and rebellious

against our pulse

quickly

slowly

NOW!

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