“My Presence,” “A Necessary Exercise,” and “A Quiet Song”

In my argument against nothingness

I get out of bed, assert myself

by going about my day.

My goal, besides making

myself presentable and reasonable enough

no one questions my choice

to move myself from one hour to the next,

is to make my continuation count.

I watch a squirrel scurry up an oak

with an acorn to store.

I see how an agapanthus stem, holding

its blue buds, bends to the sun.

I witness a young woman carry an infant

in one arm, push a two-year-old in a full grocery cart

as she checks on her four-year-old that follows.

I pull weeds in the garden and write

another poem about pulling weeds in the garden.

My to-do lists arrive like rain,

drop after drop of my ongoing jobs

wetting the week in a drizzle of my efforts

sufficient to sustain my existence.

Daily, I expect more rain.

I need to prune the azalea.

“Write a happy poem about being old.

At least you’re not dead,” she said.

She’s right. I need to heed her advice,

lean into the pleasure I experience when I

place a well-timed hot meal on the table,

consume chocolate and caramel ice cream,

eat a cinnamon scone, macaroni and cheese,

corn on the cob, or a platter of crawfish,

compose a stanza with excessive alliteration,

create a story with characters who seem alive,

write a sonnet that finds its way to the final turn,

hear the sound a poem makes when it speaks,

dig my fingers in moist soil before planting,

watch the morning doves own the yard,

see hummingbirds come to the Mexican petunias,

put in order the chaos of the gardening shed,

read a poem with language I want to hold,

watch a performer take command of the stage,

roam a museum with paintings that insist I pause,

listen to a musician teach me how a body feels,

travel to find new images, new ways of being,

learn another fact about the massive universe,

discover a creature I’ve never seen before,

store in my little brain another life lesson,

hear from an old friend I thought I’d lost,

listen to my sister’s tales and my brother’s counsel,

trust my two children still want to visit,

have grandsons that want to hang by my chair,

walk the neighborhood or the mall holding on

to my wife’s hand, share with her bad dad jokes,

giggle over some silliness of our own making,

turn license plates into imaginative play, cuddle.

No inspirational life lessons to share

from the years of collecting experience.

No words of wisdom or discerning counsel

emerging from the golden years. No,

just a few thoughts that try to escape

the melodrama of becoming less--

less passable, less potent, less present,

less curious, less calculating, less clear,

less talkative, less tactful, with less time.

Just another guy in the crowd winding down

who’s moving toward acceptance, one shuffle

after another, paperwork in order, bucket list

discarded, blinds closed, doors locked, and

one more note in the hope of a good ending.