Getting Old

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Getting Old

“Unless you know where you are going--

it’s damn hard to get there.” --Earl Carpenter.

How are you?

Earl: Well, I don’t know exactly how to answer that, except to say

that perhaps as I travel through life, as I encounter problems,

somehow I solve them. When I truly consider my stultified intricacies

of tension at the cosmic level, fully realizing that my prototypical

zygotes & scurrilous soma-tomes inhabit a primordial lagoon where

impulse relates to omnidirectional drifts that isolates them from an

inexplicable exogamy--you know, looking at my little life from a purely

esoteric point of view, I must arrive at the conclusion that yes, I’m

actually feeling much better than I did before I got to feeling worse

than I do now.

How do you feel about getting old?

Earl: All of us, & I mean each & every damned one of us, must accept

the inevitable fact that nothing in this world remains static. Yesterday,

it seems, the Old were once Young too. So harsh as it may be as a

fact, the Old have to make room for the New. I laugh at those crusty

duffers who refuse to accept their old age, searching for the fountain

of youth, making bargains with the devil to gain the appearance of

youth, dying their hair, having plastic surgery, discarding older spouses

for younger ones, jogging, cycling, hitting the gym; just making fools

of themselves--climbing a mountain then having a heart attack, doing

a hand spring, then breaking an ankle, moving heavy furniture, then

hurting their back, deluding themselves, playing games, while every

moment moving closer to the edge.

Come on, the law of Nature dictates that the old must step aside, get

the hell out of the way to make some room for the next generation--

but it would just be stupid if old people did not pass on into oblivion.

We do have the wisdom, however, to realize that our time on earth

is but a short, albeit interesting privilege.

I’ll tell you something though, I will never let my apprehension regarding

death to drive me into such a state of desperation whereby I would

suddenly embrace religion. I have read the bible, the koran, the teachings

of Buddha--& there are no answers, no solutions in them. No one ever

gets out of life alive, but I do believe we do get out fully intact as souls.

Your spirit is a form of energy, & energy can never be destroyed--it just

changes into something else.

So, grandson, my sage advice is just relax, & completely inhabit every

moment you have, paint a picture, write a poem, catch a fish, go

hunting for your food, hike blissfully into forests, stand up to your

knees in the ocean. Christ, each of us must face the sting of death

at the end of our days, & jump off into some other dimension, the

unknown. Death is merely a doorway, a portal, a transition, & when

it is your turn, come & look me up so that we can continue our

conversation.

                          Death, I fear not your 

                          sting, for God resides within, &
                          the Universe beckons. 

Glenn Buttkus

Earl Melbourne Carpenter (1898-1988) was my grandfather.

Posted over on dVerse Poets Pub