HIGH OLD TIME

Imaginary Garden With Real Toads--d'Verse Poets Pub

In a campground
somewhere in Utah
(memory fades)
setting up my tent
some older folks
occupying the adjacent space
with a big  RV
looked like a couple 
of married couples
and "Mother"
likely in her eighties
along for the ride
sitting around
boozin' it up and
havin' a high old time
convivial conversation
and laughing
so much laughing
ringing through the pines

Their own private
Margaritaville

And I thought good for them
they're happy, man
while simultaneously remembering
some statistic about alcohol abuse
being rampant among the senior population
and I thought
well 
who has a better reason
ya know
don't need to explain that
don't need to explain it at all
suffice it to say
that for a few hours
maybe they were able to forget
or even forgive

Watching the cold stars emerge
it was time to turn in

Then sometime during the night
must have been about 2 a.m.
there was a commotion
over in the RV
and someone said
"Mother fell"
and disoriented voices repeated it

Mother fell

Prolly trying to make her way to the head 
in the dark
but you could tell it wasn't good

And then the ambulance was on its way
to come and collect her
their idyllic forest getaway
soon to be a rude awakening
of glaring emergency room lights
that nice rosy glow
of a few hours back
now faded
like a long ago dream
of happily ever after

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.

TIMOTEO'S THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Inside every OLDER person

There's a YOUNGER person saying

WHAT

THE

HELL

HAPPENED?