old age

Letting Go – April 2022

From Wild Love, 1996, by Nancy Wood (published only in Japanese)

 

In my middle-aged weariness I lived with the ache

of memory. My days were flushed with shadows

of desire which sent me on paths where I had gone before,

certain each new love would be the last.

 

Who was I, then? A woman who yearned for happiness,

the kind that other people have? A woman with

a shrinking horizon that imprisoned me within

the walls of indecision? I worked as women work,

fearlessly and uncomplaining, knowing

I would survive. Then love came along

 

through the blindness of my fear and touched my heart

with music I’d never heard before. I am too old

for silliness, but I am silly now, too old for love, but love

insists on being recognized. Letting go of loneliness

is easier than holding on to fear. In my twilight years

I gather moonbeams, knowing they are real.

Things that remember themselves – January 2022

From Dancing Moons, 1995, by Nancy Wood

 

Things that remember themselves

are not forgotten, but rise on wings

of experience and paint our minds

with the visions of our ancestors.

 

Things that remember themselves are pictures

without form and words without a tongue.

They give meaning to what we thought

we had forgotten in our youth.

 

Things that remember themselves give light

to the uncertain paths we used to take,

bringing beauty to the house

of our ripening old age.

 

Wild Love – October 2021

From Wild Love, 1996, by Nancy Wood (unpublished)

 

When people look at us they see

an ordinary couple edging past their prime,

not beautiful, but slack with having hoarded time.

You with your look of contentment and me

with the eyes of  a woman permanently in love

are construed as complacency by most. We are called

respectable, dependable, unremarkable. And so we live

beneath a cloak of mild deception, laughing to ourselves.

 

No one knows that behind closed doors

you and I become young again through the magic

of desire and in our bed we make wild love

until we greet the sun. Wild love is a secret love,

the kind that ordinary couples must preserve

to keep the outside world from coming in.

Looking at Mountains – August 2019

From Dancing Moons, 1995, by Nancy Wood

 

Mountains that are looked at have a particular grace,

some are rounded and gentle, others have a wildness

of spirit, the sharp rock face of invincibility.

Still others beckon with deceptive calm, luring the unwary

with their raw beauty, heads buried in clouds, sunlight

dancing on meadows like sky fingers. The great rock god

Of the mountains sleeps with one eye open to catch eagles

and elk, wind and rainbows, the strong of limb who climb

those peaks because a mountain lives inside them.

 

Mountains that are looked at look back with the pleasure

of old women locked in the gaze of new admirers,

so glad for attention, so wary of strangers. Mountains

That are looked at increase in beauty from so much looking

and live on in memory long after we are gone from them,

remembering the hint of immortality there and the way

We were possessed by rock. Mountains that are looked at

look back with authority and the promise of tomorrow,

which is why some people die for them.

In the distance of my years – May 2019

From Many Winters, 1974, by Nancy Wood

 

In the distance of my years I cover myself with time

Like a blanket which enfolds me with the layers of my life.

What can I tell you except that I have gone

nowhere and everywhere?

What can I tell you except that I have not begun

my journey now that it is through?

All that I ever was and am yet to be

lies within me now this way.

 

There is the Young Boy in me traveling east

With the Eagle which taught me to see far and wide.

The Eagle took his distance and said,

There is a Time for Rising Above

So that you do not think

Your small world too important.

There is a time for turning your vision toward the sky.

 

There is the Young Girl in me traveling west

With the Bear which taught me to look inside.

The Bear stood by himself and said,

There is a Time for Being Alone

So that you do not take on

The appearance of your friends.

There is a time for being at home with yourself.

 

There is the Old Man in me traveling north

With the Buffalo which taught me wisdom.

The Buffalo disappeared and said,

There is a Time for Believing Nothing

So that you do not speak

What you have already heard.

There is a Time for Keeping Quiet.

 

There is the Old Woman in me traveling south

With the Mouse which taught me my limitations.

The Mouse lay close to the ground and said,

There is a Time for Taking Comfort in Small Things

So that you do not feel

Forgotten in the night.

There is a Time for enjoying the Worm.

 

That is the way it was.

That is the way it shall continue

With the Eagle and the Bear

With the Buffalo and the Mouse

In all directions joined with me

To form the circle of my life.

 
I am an Eagle.

The small world laughs at my deeds.

But the great sky keeps to itself

My thoughts of immortality.

 

I am a Bear.

In my solitude I resemble the wind.

I blow the clouds together

So they form images of my friends.

 

I am a Buffalo.

My voice echoes inside my mouth.

All that I have learned of life

I share with the smoke of my fire.

 

I am a Mouse.

My life is beneath my nose.

Each time that I journey toward the horizon

I find a hole instead.