You are quite right. I missed a day yesterday. I did not post a poem. I am going to count that extra poem I wrote early on in place of yesterday's, and call it even.
It wasn't for lack of trying. Indeed, two pieces of paper, covered with lines of verse, scratched out and restarted, attest to the fact that I actually wrote quite a bit of poetry yesterday. I merely could not finish it. I gave up at around 1 a.m..... Well, no, that is not true. I took a break from it at 1 a.m. and spent half of today, attempting to redeem it, but could not. To quote Bertie Wooster, "One has tried, one has failed! One can do no more."
Today's prompt, I am sorry to say, was a love poem. Or an anti-love poem. You had a choice. Now, I am not really much of a love poem sort of person, but I am not so bitterly cynical that I'm going to write against it either. The problem is that I don't consider love as a soft, sweet thing. I consider a brilliant, beautiful flaming sword of a thing; sharp as steel, double edged; glorious and burdensome and painful and hard. It is makes heroes and martyrs out of people. It involves sacrifice and renunciation, and while true love is always good, it doesn't always feel good. Love is so much more awesome than feeling. Loving truly makes us most human; that is to say, most like God. For we are made in His image and likeness, and the more truly human we are, the more we reflect Him.
And I do not know how to get all of that into a poem without it being not a love poem.
So this is what I came up with.
They had grown comfortably old together,
And looked at each other with lovers'eyes.
She still wears gloves when they go out;
He is fond of red bow-ties.
They hold hands when they walk out together,
Though he rushes ahead to hold the door.
Her smile still sets his heart to beating,
As it did when he was twenty-four.
They still go on little dates together.
She ties a bow in her snow-white hair.
He gallantly offers an arm to support her,
Whistling some sweet, old-fashioned air.
And they go beautifully together,
Young at heart and old and wise,
For in their great and happy age,
They still look with lovers' eyes.
1 comment:
Your poem has left me speechless and nearly breathless in its honesty and to the point simplicity.
I think as we grow older we become ourselves though tend to think of ourselves as we were when we were young. Our kids will always be our kids even when we are 100 and they are 75.
They two people in your poem have grown old together though in their eyes, in their minds and in their hearts they are and shall remain to each other who they were when they met.
Thank You
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