For We Write Poems poetry prompt #202: Journal Poem http://wewritepoems.wordpress.com/
Journal Poem #3
refused to consider old age process
denied it
gray area
rolling in like fog
off a North Wisconsin lake
No sound, solid wall of substance
Suddenly inside,
can not see more than two feet
nothing except muted murmurs
feeling one has stepped
off edge of known world
into another dimension
changes all senses
makes them seem untrustworthy
need for something
to hang onto
yet know it isn’t there
bewildering
feel fear and tension rise slowly
try to damp it down
with logic
but fog isn’t logical
it just is
like aging.
Elizabeth Crawford 3/2/14
Notes: Continuing with the WWP prompt of finding poem in journal entries. This is taken from a page dated 12/10/94. Was staring the Big 50 in the face and trying to come to terms with the fact that I was getting old and couldn’t deny it anymore. This was the first half of that entry. The other half is a close look at what I was learning from two extremely good role models. The first, an active gentleman turning 80 who was still working every day. The second, a woman of about 65 who was joyfully exploring the freedom of becoming “invisible” since turning 60. I learned a great deal from both of them. The image is a digital painting titled Prayer at Dawn.
Soul's Music 
I love the image and its beautiful title. And so resonate with your words here, Elizabeth. I also relate to your friend enjoying having become invisible. It does afford the freedom, I have found, to just be oneself. I love the lines “rolling in like fog off a Wisconsin lake” and the stepping into another dimension. Perfect capture of the aging process.
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Like how you related old age with “fog
off a North Wisconsin lake”.
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Love this “but fog isn’t logical it just is like aging”
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I was born in Milwaukee. I know what that fog looks like. 🙂
But I think I understand how you mean it in this poem. My 20 year high school reunion is just around the corner, and I’m wondering where the time went. I don’t seem to have a concept of my aging until I am confronted with its manifestation in something like the class reunion….or seeing the parenthesis around my lips in a recent video I recorded…or seeing how with long hair I start to look more like my mother. I guess for me, it isn’t fog: it’s a sudden switching on of the light and seeing the truth for what it is.
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