TIME TO GO Dedicated to the Memory of Beverly Fuchs,

Time to Go Context: The poem is dedicated to Beverley Fuchs, a dear friend who was also a member of a poetry group I belong to .  She had recently written a charmingly  optimistic  poem about putting on earrings before going to meet her chemo therapist, so I knew that her  health problem was a serious one and when she did not show up for our next meeting, I called her.  She told me then that she was going into hospice and this would be the last time we could communicate.  She added, าBut if you write another poem, would you email it to me?  You know that both my husband Vic and I enjoy your poems. We hung up and I thought  for a while  about what kind of a poem I could send her. I also thought  I want to go with her as far as I can.  And then I wrote this   poem:

                                                TIME    TO   GO

                        Dedicated to the Memory of Beverly Fuchs,

            a longtime member of the Palo Alto Thursday Poets Class

Come away, Love;  we've  had it here.

What better time to leave than Winter when the nights are long? 

Now while Orion strides the sky, the Dog Star at his heels,

we'll quit this tilted Earth that loops around the same sun every year

and hunt for different fields of stars.

And why should we regret the loss of Spring?

Regret fades fast in vagrant minds like ours.

We'll flash by Saturn first and spin away

in spirals past Magellan's clouds,

aiming whatever we've become toward some dark mass

backlit by the secret suns its dust obscures.

Black holes be damned!  And if one sucks us in,

think of the ride we'll have.

Here is my hand.  See how the flesh has fallen away

and veins show like the skeletons of leafless trees? 

It still holds warmth. Take it and be fearless

while we run the risks of Time.

We shall be stripped of everything, of course,

pared down to our essential selves;

but on we'll go beyond imaginable Beyond until

we reach the last horizon of events. 

There we will  rest together,

timeless and complete.

                                                                        Jane J. Robinson  12/15/2008 

The Aging Game

        

Looking backward, I can see

twenty one was the age for me.

I could cast my vote, I could buy a drink,

I could say whatever I happened to think.

(I sounded a lot like a “parlor pink”.)

    Problems were simply for solving;

    worth any candles my flame.

    Around ME the world was revolving

    and all my tigers were tame.

    I thought to myself,  “What a game!”

But forty one brings a pall of gloom.

Sure, I can vote.  God help me, for whom?

I can think and drink, but I fear to utter

words that could cost me my bread and butter. 

(Even my brain is beginning to stutter.)

    Problems resist resolving.

    Candles melt in a flame.

    The world I knew is dissolving.

    I’ve learned that tigers can maim.

    At forty one it’s not the same damn game!

             Conclusions:

                                   

Now in my eighties I’ve entered, I’m told,

a “golden age”.  In short, I’m old.

But fears for my future no longer daunt me,

guilt bearing  ghosts are too tired to haunt me

and friends  and family still seem to want me.

                 So?

    Insoluble problems? Outlast them.

    No candles?  Wait for the dawn.

    Tigers?  Walk warily past them.

    Don’t stir them up; do move on

    in this game, never lost, never won.

                          Jane J. Robinson, 22/7/08

(Next birthday, ninety.  Who knows?)          

TIME TO GO

Come away, Love;  we've  had it here.
What better time to leave than Winter
when the nights are long? 
Now while Orion strides the sky, the Dog Star at his heels,
we'll quit this tilted Earth that loops around the same sun every year
and hunt for different fields of stars.
And why should we regret the loss of Spring?
Regret fades fast in vagrant minds like ours.

We'll flash by Saturn first and spin away
in spirals far beyond Magellan's clouds,
aiming whatever we've become toward some dark mass
backlit by the secret suns its dust obscures.
Black holes be damned!  And if one sucks us in,
think what a ride we'll have!
.
Here is my hand.
See how the flesh has fallen away
and veins show like the skeletons of leafless trees? 
It still holds warmth.
Take it and come fearless
while we run the risks of Time.

We shall be stripped of everything, of course,
pared down to our essential selves;
but on we'll go beyond imaginable Beyond until
we reach the last horizon of events. 
There we will  rest together,
timeless
and complete

                                        Jane J. Robinson.
                                        June 2008

Wakings

I am riding in a bus...a cab?...

watching the road ahead unwind

through a shadowless desert glare. 

I sit behind the driver, separated

from him by a glass partition.

We stop.  The driver leaves his seat,

turns and comes to where I am. 

He is leaning over me.

He is saying something. Is he asking me

to join him in the front?

His face reminds me of someone,

someone who is dead.

I am confused and cannot move or speak.

This is absurd.

I wait for him to ask again;  instead

I hear the song of an insistent mockingbird

and raise my head. 

The lighted numbers on the clock

tell that dawn is hours away.

I rise and in darkness take

the familiar route: three steps and touch

the corner of the bureau, leftward then,

reaching for the bathroom door.

Back to bed, relieved, I contemplate

turning on the light,

lapsing into printed page

and turning off my mind.

I do not want to see that road again

unwinding into a sunless glare beyond

this local time and place.

I do not want to face

that half-remembered face.

But now a customary light

lights the room.  The mockingbird

is silent.  In the wistaria that droops

above the window, a dove is flittering. 

Twisting and bobbing her head, she calls

Hitherthitherwhither?  Hitherthitherwhither?

Has she forgotten where she put her nest?

I am tired still;  in disarray.

Too much coffee, too much poetry last night.

I must  change my life.   Again.

"Calm down,"  I tell the anxious dove

as I unhinge,

rise,  stretch,  begin

to face an uncontrollable day

unrolling towards another night.

Wakings

I am riding in a bus...a cab?...

watching the road ahead unwind

through a shadowless desert glare. 

I sit behind the driver, separated

from him by a glass partition.

We stop.  The driver leaves his seat,

turns and comes to where I am.  

He is leaning over me.

He is saying something.  Is he asking me

to join him in the front?

His face reminds me of someone--someone

who is dead.

I am confused and cannot move or speak.

This is absurd.

I wait for him to ask again;  instead

I hear the song of an insistent mockingbird

and raise my head. 

The lighted numbers on the clock

show that dawn is hours away.

I rise and in the darkness take

the usual route: three steps and touch

the corner of the bureau, leftward then,

reaching for the bathroom door.

Back to bed, relieved, I contemplate

turning on the light,

lapsing into printed page

and turning off my mind.

I do not want to see that road again

unwinding into a sunless glare beyond

this local time and place.

I do not want to face

that half-remembered face.

But now a customary light

lights the room.  The mockingbird

is silent.  In the wistaria that droops

above the window, a dove is flittering. 

Twisting and bobbing her head, she calls

Hitherthitherwhither?  Hitherthitherwhither?

Has she forgotten where she put her nest?

I am tired still;  in disarray.

Too much coffee, too much poetry last night.

I must  change my life.   Again.

 "Calm down,"   I tell the anxious dove

as I rise, unhinge,

stretch,  begin

to face another uncontrollable day

unrolling toward the night.

Body and Self

Some mornings when we two get out of bed,

my aging body feels unhappy.  It moves stiffly.

It whines.  It complains bitterly

even after I have given it two cups of coffee.

It just wants to go back to bed and read a book.

It’s casting me as the harsh mistress who rides

on the shoulders of this frail dying slave, 

cursing it as she flogs it up a steep path

strewn with loose pebbles and thorny plants.

The poor old thing totters on, moaning,

gasping for breath, stumbling over its cane.

Nonsense! 

I must feel its pain after all

and I have coddled it with pills, podiatrists,

and expensive shoes.

All I’m asking it to do is support me

as we move about, mostly on the level,

meeting with friends, buying groceries,

trying to keep fit by walking briskly.

An occasional hill perhaps.  No tennis.

But once a  year I do require it to go with me

to the mountains I love

and carry me around below to gaze

at the remembered heights we once moved through

with all the careless grace we used to share.

                                                                        jjr  1/01//2008