Your gray hair and mild eyes
Whisper of a lifetime perhaps,
Full of rich memories and battles fought,
Some lost. This has time-woven
A memory quilt that you can pull over you
As you sit there looking at me.

There are patches that clearly show
Quick repair and stitches
That could have been better.
It really looks a little too small from here.
Perhaps it's still unfinished.
I'm sitting in the ambient
Reality of the room, but you?
You have that blanket. You can throw it off
And use it as a pillow when it's warm.
You can use it, as now you do, to stave
Off the cold that's coming.
It's a shield you've earned, I think.

Your gray hair and mild eyes;
Were you always so peacefully blended?
Or did your hair once blow long in
The winds of youth and recklessness?
Did your eyes once have that talon-thrusting
Intensity that drove profit charts and
Other people crazy? Did some of those
Patches come with blood, smoke, and flames?
Were some torn out of other lives with tears?
You seem to be hiding some underneath, or
Maybe protecting them?

When it's your turn to speak
You often let it pass, unspeaking.
Let others burn their bridges, do you think that?
Or do you just listen in now, like an aficionado
At a symphony who hears all the nuances and
Subtleties of vibrations and techniques and knows
Exactly what the composer intended even with
Your eyes closed and your hands folded
Softly -- untensed now -- those clenches gone forever?

Or are you in there, behind all of this, scared of
The coming inexorability? Worried about all that
You have done? Regretful of so many things past?
Are you in there, tremulous with pain,
Worried of being called out, starring in your own
Tragedy, now alone, driven back onto
Yourself and your undeniable memories,
Your lack of glory and lack of courage,
Assignations of doubt and no way out?
Sitting here like a self-imposed prisoner are you
Wishing to God you were somewhere else?
Somewhere young and free again?

It's like looking into one of those mirror-on-mirror
Rooms where the images telescope away repeating,
Ever smaller but never disappearing, sort of
Bending off into eternity: me looking at you
You looking at me.
Your gray hair and mild eyes, and mine
Seem to blend together into a long, tapering
Spear thrusting into our mirror
As far as our eyes can see.

I want to be you.
Do you want to be me?

01/08/2011

Posted on 02/03/2011
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