Tuesday, April 26, 2011

in praise of youth

Younger men are so full of life.
Some are brilliant, all are teeming
with chemicals that burn through
the veins of time's green leafiness.
I said that some are brilliant, yes.
They have such extraordinary ways
of bringing structure to elusive forms,
wringing also elixirs of understanding
from the bitter fruits of profound poets.
How could some uncanny golden damsel
be immune to the subtle spoken magic
of a brilliant man, that younger man
who bestows phrases of knowledge
onto the spirit of a given green world?
Even young men of much lesser light
exude a vigor from thick black beards.
That is how it is and should always be.

Younger women are strange attractors.
A texture of spiraled light woven into skin,
according to an equation of great mystery,
creates an aura of something impossible
yet actually living in a grace of years.
Their eyes look directly at phenomena,
a fresh open vision forming true opinions.
To hear certain young women speaking
is an initiation into a rite of odd dreaming.
More than beauty, they exude knowledge
about things that farther aging must dim.
A brilliant young woman shines impossibly.
Even young women of much fainter flame
swirl in plasmas of time melted to presence.

But let us also give older age its due.
It has heavier eyes yet they also see
and appreciate the golden paragons.
The heart of later age can beat strongly
with passion thundering in uncanny silence.

4 comments:

  1. This is like a table of tapas. I need to linger over individual bites. It made me want to be a younger woman again, and yet I've not an ready inclination to be such. I see them more often as ridiculous and flighty...vain and shallow. My writing of them would be far different. And how powerfully you have made me yearn to be this description of yours! Hmmmm.....

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  2. I think I may have idealized a particular brilliant young woman. And her brilliant man. From the distance of my weary aging, I see them as exemplars of vivid life and light flowing through intellects. I so appreciate your reading and engaging!

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  3. It is always a delight to have people with whom to engage! It is the beauty of our minds/souls that we seek in aging. More and more we find that looks are a dim veil to an inner treasure. What else have we to idealize when gravity takes over, but the core of what we are :)

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