The answer came to me at about three, this morning:
nothing. There is nothing to be done. My work
lies within these bounds: it is to be as kind
as sense and time allow; to think as hard
and as generously as I know how;
to meet each person's eyes
with an honest gaze. Such commitments as I've made
to the grand world, honor them; but make no more.
It is one of the corners of middle age (a land
full of corners): the world is no longer mine to fix.
I am drifting out of it. I belong more and more
to the forgotten times, times that no longer bend
when I push them: they and I are setting, hardening.
We become the past: the play of light is history
caressing our long stone faces: the patina
already gathering, the features
already blurring.
6 comments:
The past generations seem to tell us that the world changes until it is no longer ours...
But I expect you will go on being well-rooted!
Hmm. I think the past is more malleable than the present. I certainly reshape it to my own ends.
Yes, we are receding, but the idea that "the times bend to us when we push" seems, to me, to have always been an illusion, and part of growing older is realizing this. We may not like it, but in a way it's a relief to know that it was never so.
:-) Yes. We were bending to the push of the times, for the most part.
I take it. Just the way you wrote it!
You got me there, right in the pit of my stomach.
And yet, it's like defeat and also, I wish for the serenity of nothing to be done, but cannot stop carrying the banners and nurturing hope. All the time wasting energy getting angry.
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