Here we are, a mere week from having to flip the calendar to a new page. A milestone birthday approaches and I’m more aware than ever of the passage of time.
As I’ve been preparing for a summer exhibition of art and poetry in our church’s art gallery, I’ve been reviewing pieces I’ve written over the years. The poem I’m sharing today was inspired by a book I read shortly after my mother’s death. It was a new experience for me to watch death creep ever closer. After Mom passed, the book How We Die – Reflections on Life’s Final Chapter by Sherwin B. Nuland helped me understand what happens as death approaches.
I’m pairing my poem with some art depicting old things. Rusted metal and weathered wood are a lot of fun to paint!
On Reading How We Die
“…whether it is the anarchy of disturbed biochemistry or the direct result of its opposite – a carefully orchestrated genetic ride to death – we die of old age because we have been worn and torn and programmed to cave in.” Sherwin B. Nuland in How We Die
Suddenly the pain in my toe
and the intermittent twinge
from my sciatic nerve
are more sinister than a mere
squeak in the brakes.
Sputter of forgotten
names, hesitation
while I search
for the right word,
stall mid-
sentence may indicate
there really is a problem with my computer,
though my burgeoning girth would say
gas mileage is improving
which, they tell me
is not untypical for us vintage models.
We are not unattractive
with our custom-painted exteriors
mag-wheel stilettos and Gucci lamps,
though the gray rust
keeps coming through
no matter how often we L’Oreal it away
and the age spots and dents
don’t disappear
even though we change
the Oil of Olay.
My odometer remains hopeful,
though I have heard of models my age
going up in a blue cloud of cancer
or grinding to a halt mid-trip
with a seized-up heart.
© 2006 – Violet Nesdoly
During a gathering of my husband’s family in 2011, we visited his uncle’s Saskatchewan farm site. The old barn looked shaky—not too many years left in it. Here is my pen and watercolour sketch of that barn.
I also snapped a photo of the roof looking through the middle opening. The painting below is what met my eyes. It reminds me that as our bodies wear out, our gaze goes heavenward.
Hopefully this aging happens within a community of family and friends. The painting below is inspired by the outbuildings from the farm where I grew up, living out their retirement years together in a back meadow of the farm
Violet Nesdoly 