Time and Again

and then again...

I've been thinking
about you and me and getting old
... and the man who is 113
and the value of π

aches
the undoing, unknotting, unremembering
time backward, time racing onward

...long, long thoughts, decades long

pluses and minuses, orange leaves falling, fallen, lifting
with each step the heady scent of fall.

and us, you and me and getting old

ŠSusannah Anderson, '2002
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Laurie responds in kind

and then again...
Regarding disembodied thought
as if it were
a slice of π in the sky

we shall not get old
but grow donkey's years together
and prove that the man who is 113
demonstrates mortality to the value of π
which overthrows number
in the name of proportion

the relationship of aches
to the undoing of self's existence
in time flowing backward racing onward
is a perplexity best left to

long long thoughts decades long
with pluses of weal and minuses of woe
shared and spared
kneedeep walking in clover enjoyably
and the heady scent of mown grass

falls on us you and me getting
and ungetting as seasons do
as years do and accompany
our footsteps gladly

ŠLaurie Ashton, 2006
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