When I eat now, I’ll leave
half a sandwich or an apple
partially consumed, both
bearing accusatory bite marks,
the back half of my brain
that still cares complains –
you know, the part that works
that way, lodging the little voice
that scolds you for food not consumed
when so many babies are starving in India,
my memory in the same gray cell vicinity
tells me in that voice my mother used
to lay on guilt for wasting food
when I didn’t clean my plate.
Now any time of day or night
can be ‘too late’ for me.
I used to think that way at midnight,
about not being already asleep
when employment beckoned the next day.
Which with retirement it never will anymore.
And if I eat a bit there’s usually a need
to rock myself to sleep the old way,
at least twice a day, give or take.
When I was a baby I slept a lot.
So maybe it’s a habit I’ve resumed,
a rhythmic calm I’ve not forgot.
My midday naps can often be
longer than my nighttime sleep.
This age thing creeps away at you,
at what you were, and chisels
what you are in the aesthetic way
that only appreciating Time creates.
Which in the case of later years,
this Time’s artistic goal appears to be
to nibble at you in quicker tiny bites,
chipping each bit away until what’s left
is only a memory of you in empty space.
Lanning Lee 