I confront the awful face of age

in the mirror and see its lines of beauty

wrought by time’s knife but also the

black eye of the future racing towards me,

taking what is mine and spilling it into

cold dark heart of the blank universe.

 

Then I see you: stooped and moving,

cane in hand, making your way stubborn

in the world as if to laugh at inevitability,

and smile from years and pain and

yet, unlike me, you care only for the

clarity of this crystal moment without

promises, without regrets, here vital,

for there is nothing else to do but laugh

and drink from the freshly brewed cup

of joy and contrive a life worth something.

 

So, this is what you have done to me,

with your soft, hard, heart, cruel, and kind,

and with your wilful ignoring of time:

now, when I look into the mirror and

see time’s awful course, like a river

cutting through the valley of my fearful soul,

I stand and stare, defiant, saying, “fuck you!”,

and smiling, turn to the crystal moments of

my day and say, “This is my life, all of it,

and I will look up to the stars, and chant

to the moon and say this is the radiant

day that I am making, so you’d better beware.

 

 

11/11/2025