Midnight Mutterings | Crafting a life (at 72)

Now, though, I think I would like to plan
just a little. Make sure that I don’t spend
my last moments or years doing
what I dislike, or will regret
even if only briefly.

So, when I set my priorities, shopping
won’t appear, unless it is to buy
something beautifully frivolous.
Likewise, anything loud or smelly
will be abandoned. Let the grass grow long.

Let my compulsive and generous
neighbor include my lawn in his
noisy route, without my feeling I must
lift his blood alcohol level in tribute
to his efforts to tame my weeds.

The big boats must go. Without the skills
and partnerships present when they were acquired,
they are neglected. The kayaks are enough.
And the gardens stay on the list. I love the careless
tending, then eating from their unruly offerings.

The view: I’ll keep that. Here, just above the
high tide line, I can see past layered islands
most of the way to paradise. I salute my unfolded life
and its luck sometimes grown large.
And then, what shall I attend, heretofore neglected?

The writing, of course, after silencing my most
tenacious critic, the one who stills my hand
before I begin. And the cooking: Let it become
a meditation, a sacrament. I can do that, surely.
This New Year though, no resolutions, or they would be the same

as always: left undone from the start. The desk will stay
unsorted. Likewise the garage. Let bathroom cupboards
be unexamined. There is no time, no will for them
in this lifetime. Instead, I will talk to my children,
now middle-aged, and thank them for their laughter,

their tolerance, their beings. We will walk on the beach,
gather eel grass for the garden. Bring elegant small
stones for temporary residence on the window sill,
in this temporary cottage that houses
my temporary, crafted life.