R.I.P......S Poem by RIC BASTASA

the years
are magnanimous
enough to give
you these
dignified wrinkles

what youth did
to you?
what brim of
overflowing happiness
was there
which are gone
which are no more
than just but
memories we cherish
since we cannot
take them back
again even in our
usual denials

i see you in old
age now
much the same as
myself

we feel young as
always
despite the timidity
of our flesh and
bones
we feel the rancor
of the tremulous
fingers
hands that cannot
hold much sands
palms with broken
and gnarled lines

no regret my dearest
our time has come
and we are taking exits
with the setting of the
sun
so tenderly, so discreetly
that tomorrow morning
when the rooster cocks
and the chickens jump from
where they roost
no one notices our passing
away

everyone does as mandated
by life
on with their new houses
new plans
on with their next seeding
with their coming weddings
and baptisms

soonest, the funerals
and the elegies
and dirges of those
who like us do not want
to remember
anyone or anything.....