Youth And Age - Painting A Statue Poem by Hugh Mitchell

Some years ago I bought a plaster bust
- head, neck and shoulders of a clean-cut youth
- Greek, Roman, Renaissance - not even sure.....
I painted him against the summer rain
and placed him underneath a garden tree
from whence he stared imperiously out
across the shrubs and garden furniture.

He spends each winter standing in the shed
protected from extremes of frost and storm.
Each spring I paint him up and put him out
to mount his vigil over plants and chairs.

Painting him this year I became aware
his nose was thickening under coats of gloss
his chin less craggy, his unseeing eyes
more bleary than they were in years gone by.

A spider exits from a rain-worn crack
and makes its sticky way across his cheek
and I begin to think 'Maybe this youth
is me - the way I was and am. Perhaps
as long as I can keep him from decay
- that length of time I'll keep myself alive
- crumbling, unappealing but still here.'

Hoping to live in health a little more
I dab the paint on thicker than before.