nnnn
jjj
Fleury-François Richard - Valentine of Milan Mourning her Husband, the Duke of Orléans - Public DomainI remember that my mother used to say that her father, a family doctor and observer of the human condition, would often say that aging is a process where one loses everything bit by bit. Last night I went to Tanglewood and heard the former poet laureate, Donald Hall, read his poem, Affirmation. It was especially poignant for me as I am still sad, and yes, incredulous too, about the loss of my mother one year ago. And now I am watching my sister grieve the death of her husband and loss of her known world. The young grieve quickly and then move forward into their growing futures, but for those of us with more experience in this business of loss, the accumulating numbers set up permanent housekeeping in our souls.
Affirmation
To grow old is to lose everything.
Aging, everybody knows it.
Even when we are young,
we glimpse it sometimes, and nod our heads
when a grandfather dies.
Then we row for years
on the midsummer pond,
ignorant and content. But a marriage,
that began without harm, scatters
into debris on the shore,
and a friend from school drops
cold on a rocky strand.
If a new love carries us
past middle age, our wife will die
at her strongest and most beautiful.
New women come and go. All go.
The pretty lover who announces
that she is temporary
is temporary. The bold woman,
middle-aged against our old age,
sinks under an anxiety she cannot withstand.
Another friend of decades estranges himself
in words that pollute thirty years.
Let us stifle under mud at the pond's edge
and affirm that it is fitting
and delicious to lose everything.
Donald Hall
