An Old Wood Pile [a poem with notes]

Old skin, once held tight

Against her skeleton—

Rose no more, just draped

Loosely over unpadded flesh;

Un-tightened muscles, and tissue,

Lost its courage, no-fortitude—,

Gone are the days and years

That stood against the

Indomitable elements;

The skeleton, now a landmark

Hidden under flesh and blood

Guts and moral fiber, backbone…

Collapsed from drudgery

Time, time: cascading inside—.

Bones now leaving impressions

Accepting fate

Like tarnished silver!...

Hands look like autumn leaves

Fallen from a tree

Winter’s around the corner

The door of time is closing

Like an old wood pile

Being burnet up—

Hard to open things

Hard to do anything

Precariously balanced—

Painfully slow…

She hears my feet

Cross the room—her pale

Sweet blue eyes, flicker

Like butterflies…

Tilting her face

To catch her breath

She says:

“Who wants to live like this?”

#793 [8/11/05]

Notes by the author: “I think of myself as an old wood pile you might say, and so I use that analogy here: in my poem “An Old Wood Pile,” not out of disrespect. My mother had her mission, I was part of it. She was part of mine. I think I have learned to do one thing, if anything, in life, which is to examine it; otherwise, for me it would not be worth living. For this is where the truth of the matter is. Why do we do what we do; my mother said, “Who wants to live like this…?” and I had to make a choice for her, after she made her choice. We live in a world where most people, willing or unwilling live in a pretense, when my mother said want she said, there was no more deception for her, if there ever was any. She wanted to go to the next level, and said goodbye in her own way. As we will in time.”

Dennis Siluk see his books at http://www.bn.com or http://www.abe.com