TOAST: Old Age Poems

On Aug. 19, 1988, then-President Ronald Reagan signed Proclamation 5847, declaring Aug. 21 as National Senior Citizen’s Day. This date was proclaimed World Senior Citizen’s Day by the United Nations in 1990.

To mark the occasion, I have here a new series of sonnets with aging as the central theme. I call it “T.O.A.S.T.” or “Timeworn Old Age Senior Tales” for Senior Citizen’s Day.

With this, I move away from my “Food For Thought” series of sonnets. It is now toast. A few may surface from time to time. I’ll present a few slices or sonnets at a time (kind of as Food for Thought, as a matter of fact) to go with your coffee, iced tea, or some other beverage as you peruse the newspaper.

I am approaching 70 next month and have noticed substantial short-term memory loss and other signs of senile dementia moving into my gray matter. I have written several poems about various aspects of the aging process in the past few months and will continue to do so now in the autumn of my years. As I approach the witless winter of my life, please enjoy the poems as you and I both reflect on some of the halcyon highlights, humorous, and hapless aspects of growing old. 

I vaguely recall a bad guy in some cowboy Western movie (or was it a murder mystery?), who looked at his victim and said, “You are toast.” Here is another kind of T.O.A.S.T. that you can use as a “toast” to Father Time as we all proceed in time’s ultimate direction.
 
Senior Citizen Time Space Curvature Trilogy No. 1
(So Come Taste Sonnet Connolly Tales Submitted Comments Today)

Senior Moments Sour and Sweet
“Sweet moments I live in memory still I can’t forget when you were so close to me.”
—Hughes/Thompson – 1947)
 
Ah yes those Senior moments don’t tend to linger
that momentary pause when you just can’t think of
the rest of what you were going to say – a real zinger
maybe it will come back as random thoughts sink.
Maybe some Senior moments will come and disappear
as you stumble through the finality of the aging process
Maybe memory is coming back next week next month
next year but its coming with less and less success.
Oh now you remember as you eat that ice cream cone
how hot it was when you went to visit some friends
talking eye to eye with people before you had a cell phone
or how that story began or what happens when it ends.
So senior moments come and go some sour some sweet
I hope I remember your name the next time we meet.