ANOTHER APRIL

With Real Toads--Poetry Potluck--d'Verse Poets Pub

What is this "growing old gracefully" shit?

Does it mean that you will not bitch
about aches and pains?
Does it mean that you will just smile
when all the young uppities call you "honey,"
when you'd really like to rap them about
the head and shoulders with your cane?
Does it mean that you will no longer be able
to hop on the table 
at the dance
and drop your pants?
And if you did
would they all just snicker
instead of scream?

I like to think of grace
as maintaining my own pace.
Each morning the road is filled
with cars, trucks, motor homes, and bulldozers
gunning past me like I'm standing still
just because I'm doing only
five miles an hour over the speed limit.
If any of them had been on the Titanic,
they'd have learned to chill,
and immerse themselves in the journey,
cuz you're not always going to dig the destination


Another April has come and gone,
and I'm in less of a hurry
to get where I'm going--
more inclined to listen to music
instead of news--
so I'll take some time
to take the long way home,
and when I run out of road
I want the radio to be playing
this same silky sax
as I fade
into the topaz twilight.