On Ageing

obviously

she hides the signs

wears purple

whenever

masks loss –

hearing, muscle, memory

whenever

occasionally she takes to the woods

lies among dead leaves

imagining

rotting

her absence

distinction

between being and non-being

blurred

Decorative tree on Maw estuary by George III

Inevitably death is a presence in life. When I was at primary school I remember a little girl, about my age,  dying. I recall her name, and what she looked like, after over 60 years. She was terminally ill with leukemia . For each of my decades I can name the death of at least one of my contemporaries.

I’m lucky to have reached old age. Death is inevitably closer. I’m reasonably healthy but as a result of the Covid pandemic I became on the front line. Till the vaccine.  Increasingly what is history to those I live among, is very much part of my life.

The photo above is of Blackdown wood, just below Chesford Grange hotel on Kenilworth Road outside Leamington. It was the source of inspiration for the poem. Among the trees, death is part of nature’s cycle. Trees collapse and die. Trees collapse and continue to give life – some leaves grow, insects, birds find shelter and eventually they rot. In that rotting provide life to what remains.

Thanks:  

To Jonathan Davidson who on one of his short poetry courses sent us into woods. To Wendy Pratt who published the poem in Spelt No. 9. To Roselle Angwin who years ago ran an on-line course about Trees in the Celtic calendar.

Reading: When God was a Rabbit – Sarah Winman

The Madness: A Memoir of War, Fear and PTSD – Fergal Keane. Recommended but not as bedtime reading.

Seren podcast- Interview with Rhiannon Hooson, poet – Goliat is well-worth reading.