Aging in the currents of the moment

Hello friends, Autumn brings cooler weather and an opportunity to take note of changes, both seasonal and personal. As I get older the more deliberately I need to operate, like a car that has many miles on it and more miles to travel. But the passing of time, like the seasons, is becoming as visible as fewer leaves on a tree by the Oconee River, and my ability to adjust to life’s changes — as much as I hope to be growing old gracefully and gratefully — brings new challenges. I hope you find a way to greet your own personal challenges this October “in the currents of the moment.” Thanks, Gene

 

Melatonin Dream of Aging

A melatonin-helped dream can persist
through three bathroom visits,
after reading a moving memoir on dying.

Images float from mind and core,
from undetected streams in late aging,
as I put aside cleverness to simply watch.

Spiritual guides tell us to haul in loose ropes
tied to past and future,
since now is enough without tomorrows.

This is hard to accept as many old links –
friends, family, works – still delight,
and even tough times make good stories.

Deep below the flow a subtle anxiety
prevails, raising blood pressure,
an embarrassing note of uncontrolled fears.

Learn from cat Max, ever the outlaw,
who lives with his mast cancer
and treats it with a cousin of cannabis.

Max tells me to swim in currents of the moment,
be grateful as a lucky medical coward,
borne along to a final now, here or there.