Experience

age is its own isolation
everyone I know is younger
most people my age are dead
speak as if it doesn't matter
or isn't real all the time

point of view matters
everything looks different
depending on where you stand
and the time of year and day
knowing it is the same

we are all of us here
attending to similar needs
with more or less experience
and skill still being selves
not yet finally known

what am I tryig to say
that I can't help being thus
age counts for nothing in the end
adding up as it goes along
forgetting everything

Favorite Bits

my mother liked the gizzard
I the heart everyone the liver
no one the neck good for broth

these are the ways of family at
chow perfecting our manners
learning to have what we like

no one suffered any deprivation
or other such limitation of desire
I go on wanting my favorite bits