Stream of consciousness writing in my perimenopausal years:
    aging and dying               gloom             desperation               mood swings               symptoms               philosophizing
 
November 10, 84  

Grey hair reassures  
The elderly -  
But puts off the adolescent.  
Can this fogy understand?  
Grey hair implies  
Understanding - or misunderstanding.  
Age and wisdom MAY not coincide  
But youth and wisdom DO not!  
I thank God that I can accept  
And pray that I may project  
My acceptance  
To those who need to know it.  
============ 
 

Nov 16, 84  
Seeking wisdom within  
Myself  
I find only idiocy  
Which translates later  
Into midsense.  
Given a gifted mind  
A marginal progression  
And release from tension  
It triggers  
A sensible analysis of mind  
Wherein I find the answer.  

(Is this a POEM?  
Who knows?  
An encyclopedic  event  
A bunch of junk to be reviewed  
A yard sale of my mind.  
I would buy it back! (some of it....)  
  

I want to write  
All night  
Letting the muse  
Amuse  
The crews  
Of the planes  
That fly  
Across my mind.  
I want to know  
What will flow  
To without  
from within.  
Is it a sin  
To desire  
The fire  
Of creation,  
To take dictation  
from the cosmos?  
I want to read  
the seed  
from eternity.  
I want to write  
What is right  
For me,  
I want to show  
The way that I go,  
And I want to be  
A person  
Of consequence... 

Jan 9, 85 (aged 51, no HRT)  
 Not too long before my father's (unexpected) death.  

To die with permission  
Is a gentle occurence  
An expansion of self into infinity  
A letting-go of personal gravity  
Allowing diffusion, intermixing  
Escaping from capsule  
Into unity.  
------------------------  

This came after:  

Why is my father gone?  
I do not mean that - for why  
Is easy.  
WHERE is the true question.  
Is he whole or scattered?  
Scattered I feel  
And rejoined  
With other particles  
Forming a new form  
And endowed with vigour.  
============ 
 

March 13, 85  

I see no reason why  
That I  
At sixty  
Should  
Be any less than now -  
Or twenty  
Rather an ongoing growth  
Must surely result  
In a woman of superior means  
To cope with life  
And death  
And aging -  
One who should  
And certainly could  
Be superior.  

To be allowed  
To DEMAND  
One's own originality  
Equally viable  
Equally valuable  
    is a gift from "God"  
============ 
 
 

April 18, 87  
"I am 24 years old and I have done nothing...  
Thus spake Tolstoy  
(So reports the National Geographic).  

But I - me  
I am 53  
And have achieved so little  
Crying for the need  
 the means  
To fulfil myself  
I feel myself able  
I feel myself capable  
Of what I know not.  
Sensing an ability  
Sensing a disability  
   I wonder at my worth  
   Despair at my ineptitude  
And wait for revelation.  

How or at what should I proceed?  
Why have I this speed of perception  
Yet dearth of inspiration?  
     When oh when  
     Why oh why  
Shall I succeed?  
============ 
 

 
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