No one sees the
gray-haired lady in
a wheelchair, hands shaking
Parkinson’s pulsating through her
whole body. But when
Sinatra sings, eyes aglow
grandma is someone again.
She belts out the
best part, you have
a head start, if
you are among the
very young at heart.
Used to sing this
song with my 4th
graders in a classroom
of barred windows and
boys who fought over
pencils. But when they
joined sh-boom, we forgot
about all the rest,
everyone sang like paradise
up above, and life
was a dream, sweetheart.
I suppose it was
Roy Orbison first, for
me it was always
Linda Ronstadt, straight long
hair and bright album
cover smile, couldn’t imagine
her with a worried
mind, or lonesome all
the time, then again
I was only nine
They worry about me in pounding wind,
that I might collapse, my weight crushing
fence, roof, windshield. It never crosses
their mind that I might be dancing, green
leaves, trunk, thump-shaking, swaying.
That this is my journey song, while roots
hold tight. Air my music, feel it move, groove,
and yes, one day I will topple this glory.
he always wanted to
tell people how obsessed
he was with music
piano like mozart endless
dreams before sleep, he
heard his mother in
this sound night after
night, and the doo
wop voices on street
corners like his father
snapping fingers in a
tight white t-shirt, could
have been the fonz
it all surrounds him
these memories of morrissey
sweetness, he was only
joking, gosh that was
poetry when poetry was
supposed to be just
robert frost, maybe dickinson
and these memories are
just his, his ventura
highway in the seventies
summer of bushy hair
and bee gee bearded
angels, like endless youth
living in the air
I actually want the time to show, let the world know that I’m that much closer to the abyss. Aged ringlets at the borders with brown, blonde before that, when hair was just hair. Above my ears a battleground, the grays sending sentinels, accumulating knowledge for the next attack. I stop and stare like Rembrandt with a ballpoint pen, pluck rogue whites from eyebrows where they grow as if I were a 19th century senator. Better than bald, some say, distinguished, the old compliment the old. Rejoice, rejoice, we have no choice, my favorite Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young line. Oh but we do, ointments to push back nature, like pioneers clearcutting ancient redwoods. I look in the mirror again, as if it matters, as if I will be here forever, in wonder over the me I see. This face, this head, these gray hairs, human dust clinging to a self making meaning out of molecules.
St. Elmo’s Fire, now obscure
80’s movie, song, stuck in my head
I imagine myself ninety two
like my grandmother once was
humming lyrics, words
Bye Bye Blackbird
in a room full of people
with blank faces
Judd Nelson long forgotten
Daniel W. Polk 