Turning Sixty Nine

There is music playing at the diner. Country music.
Not my favorite, but as the genre goes, not awful.
The waitress calls it “the crying channel”,
full of wailing and slipping in and out of a minor key,
not unlike your life, but without the twang.

Another year. 69. There was a time,
A couple of them actually,
when I was unsure I would see that number.
Do we get what we deserve? Rarely
and that’s often a good thing.

What do you do on a birthday? I ruminate a bit,
not my normal habit, ruminating,
but it has its place now and again.
I ruminate on what I have lost. What I have gained
and the journey in between. On the pockmarks
and scars and the loves that have smoothed them out.
Of the people who care. The people who do not.
On the whys.

It has been a year of change, this one just past.
A rearranging of the pieces, trying to make them fit
into the life I believe I am made for, flaws and all.
I am not there. I should be at this age. or at least
that is what we are taught. Ah, but when it comes to the heart
I am a slow learner, a bit afraid of what I might find,
even now. But learn I must, because at the end of learning
lies death, and I am not ready.

We are a long lived clan. Mostly, we keep our brains.
Mostly we keep moving. Mostly, we keep growing.
That is an encouragement to me, a reason to dance
through today, happy that it’s just a waystation
to whatever is next.

About this poem.

Over the past few years I have written some kind of essay on my birthday. Today for some reason, a poem made more sense. There’s no accounting for the muse, and that is part of what I like about her.

The photograph was taken at the festival of lights at the Shelburne Museum. Somehow a brightly colored train in the night felt like a good symbol for the day. All aboard!

Tom