Occasional Impressions

Gemini Twin

Auntie

[for Ian]

Oldness is not the overlay of dust.
The griminess is recency
particle-sized.
Only the finest dust will lodge
on what is past
and precious.

Only this dusty covering of grime
is gentle;
only this protection possible
for oldness startling otherwise
to eyes used to the always
psychodelic.

Oldness - pure of now-covering dust
was pure before my youth.
It must be tempered
so that we can smile
and pass it by
under the colossus’ broken legs,
over the earth-white bones
along the motorway beside the henge.

I am afraid of all this private purity of oldness.
To desire it were no sign of youth.
It is a gift.
For theologians, maybe, to be ninety
is the same as grace.
emu - jul 1973

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