Symbiosis
MorgueFile
by DavidPWhelan
i am the ordinary
the middle
--aged
--class
feeling tenterhooks
in the small of my back
lodge in the place
where love used to roost
arthritis builds its condo spread
on that tract now
a co-habitation --
a formless tendency
toward bilingual fluency.
copyright/all rights reserved Audrey Howitt 2016
Posted for Poets United Poetry Pantry
the middle
--aged
--class
feeling tenterhooks
in the small of my back
lodge in the place
where love used to roost
arthritis builds its condo spread
on that tract now
a co-habitation --
a formless tendency
toward bilingual fluency.
copyright/all rights reserved Audrey Howitt 2016
Posted for Poets United Poetry Pantry
You are like fine wine!
ReplyDeleteReflectve words. Thank you for this
ReplyDeleteI tell myself that I get better....but some days are challenging :)
ReplyDeleteVery wise. Middle age is a union of dissimilar states of being – often awkward: and yet, closer to “real” than many aspects of youth.
ReplyDeleteThis is an excellent poem.
ReplyDeleteThis is my favorite part:
"feeling tenterhooks
in the small of my back"
I appreciate the deeper layers and tucked-away secrets.
How I resonate with that arthritis condo.......and limited energy for the sturm and drang of wild emotions of younger years. Loved this!
ReplyDeleteThe tenter hooks in the back felt like fingers down a chalkboard..and yet it settles and becomes part of us - hopefully not so painful that it defines all of us.. Middle age is strange ground...how can we ever know it's the middle.. You have captured the aching felling of age like bones in an X-ray
ReplyDeleteWhat an interesting and apt description of middle age. Profound in its approach really. This resonates. Smile.
ReplyDeleteThe pain that come with age... either from exhaustion or from others yes I have started to feel it too...
ReplyDeleteIt's brilliant about pain: 'lodge in the place
ReplyDeletewhere love used to roost' ~ just painful reminder, feel it again, and pain will dissipate... ~ send you peaceful vibes, Audrey.
How we learn to live with pain, to speak each other's language, so that we come to depend on it and it on us -- a wonderfully profound work.
ReplyDeleteJeesh. In the middle, sure nuff.
ReplyDeletemiddle age is full of crises & arthritis is One of them...sigh ...
ReplyDeleteThis is soo beautiful, Audrey.
ReplyDeleteOoh, I felt those tenterhooks myself!
ReplyDelete