In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Forever Young.”
(Death is the dark backing that a mirror needs if we are to see anything. ~ Saul Bellow)
My, oh my, my love … about these depressions in our mattress, which can
Only be flipped and turned so many times before they stop bouncing back,
Let’s not think, so THAT is what we’ve done with one-third of our lives!?
By that time (this?), I hope we can say: well, OK, we need(ed) that for this, these, the
Other two-thirds, which — however long they may last beyond this point —
Must be able to push forth, astride those nights that do end;
Hurdle endings that don’t end: the endings of pets, people, people we love;
Let go of things that won’t/can’t be found again, no matter how ORGANIZED we are or
How faithfully we retrace our steps, how much we care or try or want; and, AND, and
Get used to the feeling of Nature’s waning interest in us, looking through us now to
Its more current projects, just as it becomes more beautiful in our eyes.
(How many times have I photographed the moon just this past year? The DAGGONE moon! Like it hasn’t been here all this effing time, hanging around, doing its thing while I did mine. But now, each time, with every shot, I felt/feel a word placed and then burn under my tongue: STAY! [That’s the word.] I can never tell where the word’s come from nor who it’s for. Me? The moon? Us both? Who can say [?] so I let it stay, the word beneath my tongue, until one day I look for it and find it’s slipped away again.)
I do know, though, all things do finally go, are gone, and that is that — for now, at least.
But that’s what makes life precious and meaningful. Yes, that’s just exactly how the whole thing works.
Anyway. NOW THAT THAT’S OUT OF THE WAY, to answer the question: HECK, YES! I would GULP those
Fountain-of-youth waters down, just before diving in and spending the better part of the day(s) floating — never, ever sleeping —
On my back, this back here (!), which is presently further debouncing our mattress. But, YES!
I would drink. I would make you drink, too.
(A mirror needs a dark backing if we are to see our reflection, which is always good to check out before having your photo taken, going out to dinner, etc. ~ Lourdes Mint)
Posted in
Mistake,
Poetry (?),
Random,
Story/prompt response,
Writing and tagged
Age,
immortality,
lateness,
Meaning,
moon,
mortality,
religion,
time,
youth
Lourdes Mint's Mid-Life Miracle 
There is always “burn” here now.
Door knobs burn in my hand as I turn them, so I leave the inside ones open. Even the floor burns the bottoms of my feet, so: shoes, but they burn also. These words too, all words, whether I think or say or read them, they all burn now. Sometimes./
To hear them, these ones here, spoken aloud in this room today — w/ no one aside from me listening, no music playing, nothing baking — to hear them without burning, what I would give for that! To be back there, here but back then, in my dream of life again, where it was plenty warm enough, what I would give./
There were times I’d think I must have come from there to here through someplace really cold. I’d think, could I have died that day? That day I “wakened” to the smell of all my pies burning and you knocking as loud as you could on the door. “What’s burning? Are you okay? What’s going on with your hair?”/
We threw the pies into the garden, laughing. You cut my hair in the kitchen to help fix me back up as we aired the place out. “What happened, though? Did you fall asleep? Since when do you bake pies and for what?” I opened you some wine and we spent the rest of the day together./
But I watched the pies slowly disappear alone. It took weeks and then one downpour finally carried the rest away./
Today, I know I came through someplace really cold to get here. Why else, how else, could touching these now — these plastic keys — burn me so? So that the plainest words/thoughts, uttered as plainly as I can manage, are birds barely escaping a flame and then at the very last second returning or just stopping, letting it happen, letting it wrap them and hold them in its hot hands until they turn to ash?/
There is always “burn” here, but I’ve begun to wonder if it might be okay for a time./
After all, crying now is like climbing a tree—but on another planet. Crying: Why? How? It doesn’t happen here, I don’t think, but I’m not completely sure (having learned about evaporation so long ago). I do know it’s not okay not to cry ever./
I know too that today nothing is baking, no music is playing, and no one knocks or doesn’t knock at the door. And I know I didn’t die that day. I am being still and quiet, no more words aloud for now, dreaming of when I was “just warm enough” and wishing I could cry, here or on some other planet, any planet (except Mercury, Venus)./
And yet. Even though these words, my memories, the door, the floor, the bottoms of me feet — ALL of it burns, all of it is burning me — I begin to think it could all turn out all right, that one day I will be just warm enough again.
***
THIS is a repost, thanks. I’ve been gone from here for SIX long months. I consider it a bit of providence that I log back in tonight, after several days (weeks? months?) of thinking about this blog AND THIS POEM especially, and find that BURN is the one-word daily prompt. Today. When I log back in … But so, I have nothing new here now, I don’t think, am exhausted, but I jump back in to this — everything — holding the hand of my 47-year-old self from two years ago. I trust no one more.
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/burn/
https://wordpress.com/post/lourdesmint.wordpress.com/678