But for my body’s vibrancy
Lost from age
I feel better and better, now in my tranquil maturity
A tree grows high and wide with time
I know heights, now, placid in age
I never knew in youth, when I was figuring it all out
And I’ve got a handle on how things work better, now in my tranquil maturity
Better than in my excited youth
The world and I sync better
Than my fits to plug into a system I wasn’t fit to engage
In my early becoming adult
So many questions I faced unaware
When to argue
When to articulate a novel thought to stand out before my teachers
The battle to be self at school or workplace—alienation—enforcing conformity
That moment when my professor said I’d better start thinking about a different profession
provoked by my Marxist critique of Wordsworth’s IDIOT BOY
I really don’t know why I don’t fight anymore
Or why I used to
Or why I was never happy no matter where I lived: Ohio, Boston, Charlottesville, Florida
And my contentment, indeed happiness, now in Edmonton
And of the things I no longer let bother me:
Other people disagreeing with me
Things I have to get done by yesterday
Whether people like me
Traffic, specifically tailgaters
I haven’t time nor energy nor inclination to disturb
My peace
The breadth of my awareness
Expanded and expands still from youth’s constrictions
Knowing largely the way it was always done, then,
At home, hometown, Sunday School
Plain, innocent, not knowing things
I remember questioning the merits of my professor’s USC degree, me knowing only UCLA
Making judgments in these facile these days
The young’s flash and intensity of passion
Have calmed, calming me, contenting my present
There was that time when it all lay in front of me
So much to master, to conquer
Most of it’s past now
The challenges I’ve conquered, arts mastered to such as one may
I’ve laid my foundation, a good one
Upon which I stand, build, have built, refine, expand
I burst the bonds that have constrained my heart
As my soul breathes free, breaks free
The future doesn’t beckon anymore
Though I continue leisurely progress in cognition, will, behavior, refinement
Sensibility, sensitivity, sentiment, solidarity
I read now as much as talk
And today, W. H. Auden moved my sensibility, sense, cognition towards where I wasn’t before
And today I’m closer to the time when I’ll die
I ponder whether I’ll die well,
Studying to live well
My measured gait is not due to decrepitude
I carry the weight of my awareness,
Thoughts, contentedness, purpose, perceptions
Measuring my stride through life
Looking back, down from olding heights,
From the altitude afforded by maturing,
On who I was, what I was, how I did what I did
The mysterious ascending current flowing toward my future
Inhabiting my present, my pacific contentment my ever-evolving mentation
And I will die well
David Fekete 