203. OLD AGE

OLD AGE
The hand on that local banner, the one waving
something from atop the shed, reminded me of
long ago : a small town somewhere, honored
only by its own - inhabitants with nowhere
else to go. The church yard and the steeple,
athwart the gated cemetery along the parson's
house (the one given to him for free, in two-year
increments) sought to bring the nearby people
something they'd always remember.
-
The charm of a winter's river or a summer lawn.
The weak lights across the porch-way, where
two gents sat, strumming old guitars. Singing
hymns was something always just like this:
attuned, harmonic, with ears to catch the sound
floating aloft in the very wind. Gentle maidens too,
I can recall, dressed in white, shimmering in the
sunlight, doing their laundries at the river's edge.
-
High above everything, some white-washed crazy
cross stood out. The pigs, snorting as they wished;
the ancient chickens, making rubbish out of dirt and
seed. Nearby, lording over all of this, the old folk,
in their pell-mell fashion, made mess of dates and names.
It was a village of the too-old and too-forgotten;
those pacing the surface for what was beneath it,
those biding their time for an ending to come.