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Robert Lindner
The Pitfalls of Age
“Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”
Do not go gentle into that good night,
By Dylan Thomas
“And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;”
And death shall have no dominion.
By Dylan Thomas
The years have passed me by,
And now my errors seem to multiply.
I try to stay on track,
But I have lost the knack,
And must keep going back.
I’m frustrated, but I don’t wonder why,
Because I know old age
Is an old copy book, where a new page
Is hard to find to write
On, hard to keep in sight
And mind so it can light
My light of memory. Still, as I “rage,
Rage against the dying
Of the light,” I will have to keep trying
To live through each new day.
And I know that I may
Find pitfalls on my way
And a stumble that might leave me lying
And crying and swearing
At myself, with other people staring,
As I’m, pathetically,
Trying hard not to be
An old fool and sadly
Failing at my tasks. Often, not daring
To try things that I know
Will be hard to do. But I still must go
To places to do things.
Since we’re living beings,
We must do a few things.
Since I’m old, I may screw things up and throw
A fit about the pit
I fell into because I forgot it
Was on the left, not right,
Though, it was in plain sight.
So, I’ll rave, as the light
Is dying, as “old age should.” Then I’ll spit
Into death’s fearsome face,
When the angel of death tries to embrace
My life, with that final
Moment, that end that all
Come to when death must call
To take our bodies out of time and space.
Then there’s none, since we’re done,
But we’ll cry, “Death shall have no dominion,”
But it’s just poetry
Like “windings of the sea”
Or dying “windily.”
But though “Dead men, naked, they shall be one”
With the wind and the moon,
I’ll not wish for that ending. It’s too soon.
So I’ll try not to rage
In my hour on the stage
When pitfalls of old age
Make me feel like I’m in a Looney Tune
Cartoon. Where I will be
Stumbling and bumbling through my memory,
Where I’m trying to find
The password to my mind,
That computer designed
For obsolescence, unfortunately
Programed by me with some
Old ideas, whose time like mine had come.
I keep meaning to change
The program. But it’s strange,
I just can’t rearrange
All the old memories that are the sum
Of my existence on
This little planet where my life would dawn
And be able to age,
From first to the last page.
Though, as I near, I rage
About the dying light before it’s gone.
And I tell myself, I
Talk to myself, since who’d listen to my
Self-pity, as I whine
About another fine
Mess of my own design.
I can’t blame Stan because, as time goes by,
The fundamental things
Apply, but I keep forgetting. That rings
A bell, though I could not
Hear it, so I forgot
Something. I don’t know what.
I’ll remember, when what I forgot brings
Another fine mess. It’s
Waiting for me, I know, I’m at my wit’s
End, waiting for that shoe
To drop and wondering who
I am. Old age can do
That to you. But it’s not worth having fits
About the pits you might
Fall in. Though wise men know that dark is right,
At the end, but till then
Old age takes tolls again
And again. But life, when
It’s given you is like the sun in flight.
A blessing, till it’s time
To slow your pace at the end of your climb,
Turn what life’s pitfalls give
To how old age can live
Since the alternative,
“The dying of the light.” On the stage I’m
On performing Dylan
Thomas’s play, is recalling I’ll be one
With the wind and the moon.
My Looney Tune Cartoon
Will end and far too soon
“That’s all folks” will be Porky’s opinion.
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