Vox Populi
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Dawn Potter: Now that I’m old
and I don’t shovel goat shit or haul logs out of the forest,
now that I don’t have sex every night or carry two fat boys,
one on each hip, up small mountains,
I have to go to exercise class.
Thank God for Zoom and pajamas
and the really bad eyesight that lets me forget
what everyone else can see all too clearly.
And our teacher is kind; she is like a kindergarten mom
holding a cupcake tray. No one ever riles her
with hard questions such as Why should I care?
Some days I even believe in my husk,
feel a sort of scraggly, dogged pride
when I’m in the midst of squatting for eternity
or doing horrible pushups and the teacher is cooing,
“You’re superwomen!” and we’re all on mute
so we can’t talk back even if we had the breath to do it.
Lord, I don’t know what I’m really writing about—
Maybe it’s fear of death, maybe it’s mourning
because the man I love snores so hard
that we can’t sleep in the same bed all night,
maybe it’s the sight of my mother,
shoulders curled in like a toad’s,
ensconced in her chair, diddling on her phone,
too indifferent to put her dishes into the sink.
I want to be alive, aglow. I want what I can’t have,
a chance to reprise a body that sings to a heart,
but instead, morning after morning, I struggle
through crunches and dips, waiting for a voice
to call out from the aether: “You can stop now.”
Copyright 2022 Dawn Potter
Dawn Potter’s many books include Chestnut Ridge (Deerbrook 2019). She lives in Maine.
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Dawn,
I respectfully submit that your poem is premature and missing your usual gutsy vibrancy, laced instead with a sense of pessimism bordering on futility.
Since age is a universal adversary, your poem sparked some thoughts.
Almost from the moment we are born, we are impacted by a primary social directive: “Act Your Age!” There is validity to this admonition: reins us in to the confines of social norms; ensures that we are not too controversial thereby running the risk of ostracization; intended for us to become productive and fulfilled as human beings.
I spend a lot of time with my two-year-old grandson and often feel the tidal pull to impose the same socialization upon him: “Use your words”; “Use the potty”; “Look both ways”; “No more binky”. Such exhortations set in motion a dynamic we wrestle with the remainder of our days — the tug and pull of our inner urges against the pressure to conform.
A fundamental truth declares, “Any premise, pursued to its logical conclusion, must inevitably yield its antithesis.” It speaks to the circularity at the core of our reasoning and the tenuous footing girding our understanding.
While we are inspired to be the master of our fate, the captain of our soul, ultimately the directive to act our age tips the scales toward an antithetical outcome. Beyond a certain parameter, the expectation to act our age devolves to the detriment of our fulfillment and joy. Thus, what should be the pinnacle of personal success, (after all, not everyone achieves such status) instead completely devalues that status. One begins with unlimited promise and ends up valueless, only to be discarded by the world.
If we allow this to happen to ourselves then we deserve such a fate.
I don’t believe either of us are at such a place.
Rick
Prayer of the Gentle Warrior
May I never grow old
Or hard within
May I always be open
And full of my first breath
May my waters flow in harmony
With Mother Stream
Gentle Peace
I am
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That is the better me. Not the one who does word blitz by the hour because “ I need to get my brain back in shape. “. No mother lef. I am the matriarch now. Last one standing, sort of. Big empty house. What new ‘can’t do’ will the body reveal today? This was supposed to be the old persons gathered in coffee shop time. Damn COVID. Keep exercising. Who knows what the world will throw us next or what of our evils it will return in unkind? For this iteration, I’m planting sunflowers.
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Hits home for a lot of us, no matter gender preference.
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No no—you don’t want to hear that voice that says you can stop. Not now.
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