As the embers of the current year die away, it is a time of reflection between these last moments of 2009 that are otherwise shared between finishing off a grant proposal to fund the next few years of my research and processing yet more manuscripts that await editorial decisions (it is perhaps not surprising that many reviews were submitted in these last days of the year). And as a part of that reflection, I reprint here a poem written by, of all people, my own father. Ostensibly, it is a poem about an old married couple, Philemon and Baucis, who, having given sanctuary to the god Zeus, were granted the wish that each should die at the same time. My parents are (I think, but cannot be absolutely sure!) 87 and 85. And I have learned much from them.
Philemon and Baucis
They no longer remember their actual age,
every night’s a new night on their hard bed.
They search for their old bodies and embrace.
Every night new, every night the same:
sharing of experience gives their love strength.
They no longer remember their actual age.
Time’s measure they now reject as strange,
the time that matters turns to love instead.
They search for their old bodies and embrace.
There is never in their love such careless haste
that forgets the affection of caress.
They no longer remember their actual age.
They now rejoice that they have learnt to tame
the youthful follies that helped create stress.
They search for their old bodies and embrace.
Their love does not seek greatness nor fame
but at last is all about and much more than sex.
They no longer remember their actual age,
they search for their old bodies and embrace.
I have never really understood poetry. Yes, I know that makes me a philistine. But this is one poem I do understand. I reproduce it here to remind myself that there is more to life than writing (and reviewing) grant applications, editing a journal, or coveting expensive bean-to-cup coffee machines...
poem © Simon L. Altmann
