Living stilts

Photo: ©Dilyana Gergova (http://1x.com/)
Marcel Proust likened aging to being "perched upon living stilts that keep on growing" — the view improves but our gait becomes ever wobblier.


The sap of time
past time, lost time
pulsing through the supple wood
raising us higher and higher
to the church tower.
Ring out, chiming view!


But there is no unwringing the furrowed brow
the hickory gait will become a wobble
and moss velvet the clapping tongue
gone youthful strut and swagger
we start to teeter

we totter.

A jagged line we write
slowing to a standstill as we
learn to hear the dry cry of knots.
Is the brittle timber to snap …
Or will our petrified tower top-
ple?

After the fall
shards and splinters
new driftwood for the pool of time.

Photo: Broken pier - ©kani polat (http://1x.com/)