Barbara Crooker: In the Middle
Each day, we must learn
again how to love, between morning’s quick coffee
and evening’s slow return.
Michael Simms: Prospero needs a little nap
Vox Populi will endure, albeit at a slower pace.
Carol Moldaw: Game Face
To see the ravages of aging on one’s face used to be inevitable.
Now it means one’s taken a stance.
Barbara Edelman: White-Throated Sparrow
Though she is dead
she is buying me a car
and this buying makes her happy
Sydney Lea: A Monk After Dark
One boot sags like him in his cubicle’s corner.
He drops the other to the floor with a grimace.
Barbara Crooker: Nearing Menopause, I Run Into Elvis At Shoprite,
The bass
line thumps and grinds, the honky tonk piano moves like an ivory
river, full of swampy delta blues.
Laura McCullough: Hero With Only One Face
He tells me in his diminishing days, death not yet active,
but clearly begun, about his siblings, family shufflings,
foster homes, the orphanage. Who said they would
but then could not, who promised this & forgot that
Video: Wooden Wheel | A Filmmaker’s Tender Tribute to Her Seafaring Father
Grounded by a sailing injury, Arthur still finds solace in the Irish Sea.
Doug Anderson: Ghost
The old man finally just went away
to live in the mountains. Two goats,
a dog for company. The wind
made a harp of the pines.
Michael Gregory: Third Day of Christmas | Earth Air Wood Water Fire
Too many missing from this year’s mailing list.
Looking back I’m humbled to remember
how many stupid things I’ve done and survived
Anonymous: I Get By With a Little Help From Depends
Some of the artists of the ’60s are revising their hits with new lyrics to accommodate aging baby boomers.
Dennis Patrick Slattery: Aging in Body, Eldering in Spirit
Our culture is hungry for voices of elders to share their wisdom with us, to counter the fierce energy of adolescent flames that insists on “my” and “me” to the exclusion of “us” and “we.”
Neil Shepard: Local Freeze
Flat lines of black clouds
rolled over the Everglades, pelting the land with cold rain,
then, briefly, almost impossibly, hail, over the wetlands and dredged
fields, reminding us how fragile the grapefruits and oranges.
Barbara Hamby: The Tawdry Masks of Women
and when I see myself
in bus windows or store glass, the shock never wears off,
for I recognize myself and see a stranger at the same time
Vox Populi 