Ode to my body

Your'e breaking my heart

My body, my Love

ONE

My body

You and I have been together

Since childhood

When drunk on the mystery of life

I danced through the woods

Laughing and singing my song

Of youth so strong nothing was ever wrong

Between us

I took you for granted

Until in middle age

you sent me messages of

Deep dissatisfaction

That became illness

Despite my efforts to sustain

And please you

The foods I cooked from scratch

The workouts at the pool

It wasn’t enough

I was no match for you

And twice we nearly

Went our separate ways

TWO

But here we are much later

And I am still wooing you

Anxious for the tell-tale signs

of creaking joints

of mislaid keys

of rotting teeth

That tell me we’re about

To part ways

For good, for always & forever

They say other realms loom

Just out of sight

only a thin membrane separates us

And dying well is a simple matter

Of stepping softly into that hidden room

What we find there is a matter

Of faith, fantasy, or opinion,

We cannot know

Only experience will show

Who rules in that dominion

I am not yet ready to let you go

My Dear old body

I now recognize you as

The organizer of my soul

Oh the pleasures we have tasted

Moments of secret bliss

When Love took us

On a wild ride to the other side

The pain was as nothing

Compared to these sacred pleasures

These intimate joys

That we tasted and treasured

THREE

Yours alone are the gifts are that make life

So hard to sever

The taste of my lover’s skin

The sound of birds

The sea heaving in quiet repose

Melodies melting in my ear

And the sweet scent of

A rotting autumn rose

All these things

Will disappear

Because you and I

Must soon part

Forgive my foolish

Keening heart

I play for time: I pray for another: year or maybe three: A final dance: A sip of wine

but then it’s surely over

for you and me

But the mystery is kept intact

&

I know for a fact

we will embrace life again

maybe with a sprightly jig

or some sexy tango gig

&

I see us joined together

Once more

frisky and young to the core

high stepping

in the eternal, the infernal

the everlasting

comic cosmic dance

Oh do not look askance

At me

Who writes poems to her ageing body

while the Stones sing let the old believe they’re still young

I do not believe they know that they too are almost done