Managing Losses

While death for me no longer looms
The streams of loss continue
The instigating cause for me
Not cancer or the shingles.

It comes because the second half
Of life has part intrinsic –
The things we gained while in first half
Have title deed extinguished.

My mind flows back to parent folks,
Their parents, and grandparent,
As stories flowed and comments passed
Of aging, loss, ways-errant.

While growing up we couldn’t wait
To gain each stage succeeding
But now the future’s stage of life
My rush ahead’s impeding.

’Tis said that Jews, when Nazi’s rose,
Did best if gains were given
Than waiting till ’twas torn from them –
Those things for which they’d striven.

The vows we made short years ago
When saw the bright side gather
I find as tide recedes to sea
The dark side’s impact scatters.

‘Till death us part,’ said we those words
With adult world before us
Then through the woes we saw around
We walked, unscathed, that forest.

Though dark it was, those wooded paths
Quite frightening times, disquiet.
The hits we took were milder than
Tsunami, war and riot.

Some things they cannot take away
They’re vested now ‘in heaven’.
So, as the other things now pass,
They lift our souls like leaven.

Then, yet again, new aspects fair –
Unbidden, life emerges –
This early stage of older age,
See, life around it surges.

Perhaps it’s time to say good-bye
To parts of life departing
Then turn our focus to the rest
Our love and life imparting.

From here on loss is going to be
The game for boomers aging;
I’ll not these years just mope around
Or ’gainst the night be raging.

So ‘what is left?’ Ulysses asked
In poem mother quoted.
Where are my isles and western stars
For sailing into, boated?

Eight years on chart for me of Jacques’
Stage: “Theory’s Intuition”
Then shift once more into the roar,
Stage: “Forming Institution”.

I laugh as I recall the quip
Of businessman successful –
‘So rapidly we start to win
Once sex becomes less zestful.”

These threads picked up that fell away
When moments were more swirling;
While closures ring, give life its wing,
This time of life – it’s sterling.

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