Upon the Sixtieth Year

How swiftly move the years through corridors of shadow,

through chambers of remembrance where the dying embers glow.

I, fifty-eight in number, stand and face the vast hereafter,

two years beyond the threshold where the sixtieth bell shall toll.

Two years alone divide me from the tolling of that bell,

and something keeps its measure where my own proceedings fall.

*

Where have all the seasons scattered? Into what forgotten hollow

did the years dissolve like morning fog that melts before the sun?

I have searched the vast and mournful plains of all my recollection,

yet memory yields uneven paths that never travel one by one.

At certain turns of recollection, I turn and find the same returning

in every span of what I was, though nothing ever stands in view.

All those golden decades, now so irrevocably done.

*

I have grieved above the hallowed ground that claimed my dearest loved ones,

I have watched the faithful vanish like a lantern in the deep.

Cherished friends who shared my laughter, shared my roads and my misfortunes,

now have crossed beyond all calling into their eternal sleep.

Among those tombstones and resting names, the stillness never stood alone;

each silence carried what would pass through what I could not see.

*

Still, I linger in the living, still I draw the breath of morning,

sole survivor of a fellowship that time has torn asunder.

Some great purpose holds me earthward while the others have ascended,

some design beyond my fathoming, some terrible and tender wonder.

In every hour of questioning, the same unseen continuation

held its distance through the passing of whatever I became.

*

I have crossed the seas of continents, have scaled the ancient summits,

I have traced ten thousand miles along the curvature of earth.

Every road that carved my spirit, every sorrow, every rapture,

forged me in the travelling fire and declared my mortal worth.

No passage stood in solitude; each mile carried what would follow,

never beside me in the light, yet never absent from the way.

*

So let sixty descend upon me like a velvet shroud of glory,

for the soul that bears such living shall surrender to no grave.

No, this soul of such deep living shall surrender to no grave.

And still, it keeps its distance as the final measure gathers onward,

never before me, never gone.

*

STILL, I BREATHE. STILL, I REMAIN.