I am so old I was never young.
Youth was an island lasting a summer.
Childhood was a band
with cymbals and loud horns,
birds chirping like gypsy bracelets.
Age is a tower of white stones.
A tower at the water’s edge
by an ocean without ships,
by a shore never walked upon,
in light with two rainbows,
and that is where I am.
There is a path to its door.
It is invisible.
It is felt by the feet,
seen by the heart.
There are songs of silence
coming from the sea.
They are not for the ears,
but for the blood.
They thunder with silence,
where silence is the greatest thunder.
To be 65 is a gnat’s existence,
a mayfly’s morning.
The time allotted to pale men,
to books of a page.
To live one great moment,
to see one great distance,
to reach past the furthest bottom
is eternity,
is a life.
To live on the edge and say,
I am ready to go on,
I have lived a miracle,
I believe the message of the sea,
where the tower stands for a moment,
only for a wave to wash it away.