“Decline”, “Settled”, and “‘Don’t Get Old'”
By Jo Angela Edwins
Decline
In late July summer begins to die.
I grieve the light but not the heat,
the heat anyway still in its prime.
This is my time of year for catastrophe,
the beginnings of my mother’s cancer,
my father’s dementia, my sister losing
the use of a leg and, years later, another,
then years later again her gradual decline
into infection after infection, and irrationality.
Two years ago today, a man I once loved blindly
and deeply had less than two months to live.
This is the season for afternoon storms,
thunders that frighten the animals,
but today I welcome the insular cradle
of gray skies, the low rumble, the occasional flash
of lightning that I still use as excuse
to run no water and answer no telephone.
A man whom many I know adored
but whom I barely knew died yesterday
at eighty-six, in his sleep. I cannot mourn
a man I hardly knew, and all I can think
is how this is the way to go. By all accounts,
he’d spent the week before dying doing exactly
what he loved, browsing bookstores, lunching with friends,
cheering on the Cubs. The man he’d loved
for forty years had died six years before.
Still, he was content in his small apartment,
surrounded by neighbors and friends.
This is how it should be for all of us:
a life of health and love, just enough money
to retire and live well for twenty more years,
heart and mind and legs still strong enough
to do what you need to do until at last
you need do nothing more. Why must it be
that all our lives aren’t lovely and long?
Don’t say the same old foolish phrases,
like life’s not fair or original sin.
The only constant is pain. Even this man
I barely knew had his share. That I’ve not heard of it
is proof enough that I barely knew him.
I want to tell those in my life
who wish to make pain a competitive sport
that I love them, complete with their burning need
to justify what needs no justification—
sitting alone with their only kind of pain
and refusing to do a thing anyone, themselves
included, expects of us all, each ordinary burden
too much to lift with arms lashed to your back
by heavy chains of hurt. Go on. Sit still.
Let the world, from stranger to sister, declare you less than,
the symbol for which is an arrow soon enough
pointing back in their direction. No, let the rain
thunder down in torrents and drown out their voices.
Sit in your small, dry room. Sip something sweet.
Stare at the walls. Count flowers in the wallpaper.
Speak to the emptiness there, its body round
and welcome at last, and tell it there is nothing—
nothing at all—at this moment that you wish to say.
Settled
Let me go on being the unvisited,
living in a house that needn’t be neatened
for company. Let me endure the occasional
hiss of drafty window or running toilet,
let me watch the stacks of unshelved books
come closer to toppling, let me add to the sink
one more unwashed dish. Let me be the one
to enter the world by exiting a door
few others have passed through. Let me ride
road or rail to meet whomever I wish
to hold or hug within a space strange or familiar
but not mine. Let me keep from the world
the wisps of detritus collecting in the corners
of my leaning walls. For years I have watched
the cracks meander from floor to ceiling.
When at last they are patched, foundations steadied,
I will be where no one can find me, where no one can judge
the layers of dirt piled around my narrow bed.
“Don’t Get Old,”
I tell my students
when for the life of me
I can’t remember
this or that line from
a poem long memorized,
or this or that name
of a famous person,
but I don’t mean it—
dear ones, I don’t mean it!
Please do live
your one gorgeous life
for as long as your one
gorgeous heart can beat!
Eat every moment
like your favorite fruit
at the peak of its ripeness,
and if sometimes
this or that bite
is rotten or bitter, don’t
walk away in despair
or disgust, even if
bite after bite
tastes of cruelty, of madness,
of hot disappointment;
there are fruits on trees
yet to be planted
that one day will taste
of cream-dolloped heaven,
so please don’t stop eating,
please devour and devour
until your gnarled fingers
can’t grasp anymore
the round shapes dangling
in or out of reach—
then let the young ones
pluck enough for you both,
watch through dimmed eyes
their faces glow with pleasure
at every bite they take,
then tell them, scared children,
Grow old, grow old. This
dark world needs the light
of your juice-glazed smile.
Jo Angela Edwins has published poems in over 100 journals and anthologies, including recently in The Hollins Critic, Pirene’s Fountain, and Anacapa Review. She is the author of A Dangerous Heaven (2023) and Play (2016). She teaches at Francis Marion University, where she serves as the first poet laureate of the Pee Dee region of the state.
