HAIR published in Inquirer column - Poem: Brief Panic on Turning Seventy

Lying in bed falling asleep, or was it watching The Murdoch Mysteries on Netflix, or was it taking out all the garbage from my party, or was it drinking heavenly Plantation Mint Tea by Bigelow, or was it riding my stationery bike FIVE times today for high blood pressure,

I felt

BRIEF PANIC ON TURNING SEVENTY

Mom said it was 80 that made her
feel old. Unstoppable, she's
now that rare bird, a

Nonagenarian, accordion
folds on her face playing
melodies of all the people
she's loved and lost

We rolled back the years
as we conversed in the
room with the fireplace
and Amy's hanging quilt

Her pain lessening each
day from the fall she
sustained on the hard
cold blacktop on the drive.

All five of her living
children did their duty
mandated by our Bible

Our numbers rose like a
good day on the stock market
to a baker's dozen

adding our voices to
the conversation of
mankind

What use am I now?
Unlike the she-elephant
who gives birth
thru her sixties

My eggs are stone dead
like an omelet stuck
to the iron grill

I pretend not to
notice my ossifying
brain, spent reading
thrillers at midnight

Watching Netflix and
listening to swaying
jazz right across
the room

As the last of the
Xmas lights sparkle
in our neighborhood

Not mine, I turned
them off and buried
them in the basement

I await the final
lights out. Oh,
keep them on, ye
few neighbors, I
gotta believe in

ole Saint Nick's
sleigh.


***



A couple of weeks ago, my friend Freda told me that an Inquirer columnist was writing about having Gray Hair.... would I like to write something.



Today along with a dozen other submissions, it was published.

By age 45, my hair was all white like George Washington's. Off to the hair salon I went so the stylist could make me look 30 again. What fun it was changing colors like the autumn leaves. Red was fun, you tramp you! A year ago, I got curious and let the color grow out. Who's that in the mirror with the pearl-white hair? I'll never get used to it, but it looks good, and I've saved thousands of dollars. Impossible to believe I'm now 70.

Ruth Z. Deming, Willow Grove






***



And that's all I have to say.