Honorable Mention

My cousin Jake is a writer and used to live in Tucson.  He belonged (and still does, I believe) to a local writer’s group, the Society of Southwestern Authors.  Jake encouraged me to enter this year’s writing contest.  I submitted a poem entitled  “Hard Frost”, which garnered me an “Honorable Mention”.   The celebration of the winning entries was held this past Sunday, with the winners reading their selection.

Hard Frost

 

Gossamer strands of sunlight

beam through darkened hemlock woods.

White hoarfrost on the ground,

summer’s reign has come to an end.

 

Gently yellow leaves rain down,

every puff of wind sends a shower.

They flutter and dance as they fall to the earth,

beads of yellow against darkened rock.

 

Done with such grace and beauty,

such hardly seems like death.

There is no sadness here;

Only splendor in the change of life.

 

Uncertainty

I am not sure that I really thought that I had Parkinson’s, though it was so weird whatever happened this summer.  But what is uncertain is thinking “do I have some major, all-encompassing illness?”  I think that I am leaning to what my brother and aunt said, that this is a part of getting older plus the effects of having fibromyalgia for 28 years.  The uncertainty is more to the end of “Am I coming to the end of my life?” What does this mean? Is it possible to get better, or is this just a long, down-hill slide which I’ve been on for over 30 years?  We only have one life, and until you are old, you don’t know what being old means.  I guess it means something different for each person.  Does being old mean that you are having all of these aches and pains, and you are slowing down? It narrows your whole world because I can’t do everything that I used to do or want to do.  My world just seems to be contracting and contracting.  I have already seen where my dad was, and I can see what the end is.  This is all disconcerting and frightening.