Or: How a Gift Turned into a Creative Exercise.
My girlfriend of many years is having a birthday soon. This not your typical birth anniversary, though; she is turning 65. This is an event of some significance. With it’s passage, gone is any possible pretense of middle age, much less youth. It is the widely recognized if unofficial start of Old Age. Around this time, younger folks start asking you if you need help loading your groceries or hauling your luggage. You get called “sir” or “maam” a lot more than you used to. Medicare, senior discounts, and assorted tax breaks take some of the sting out of it, but still it’s still a jolt.
Carolyn gave me no hint whatsoever what she wanted for this milestone event. I got her a few gifts of the type she typically likes. But that didn’t seem to be quite enough. So I also wrote her a sonnet, a type of poem. There are several styles of sonnet. I chose the English style, probably the most common, for no particular reason. The format consists of three “quatrains,” or four line stanzas, followed by a two line finale. A quatrain is like a chapter in the overall story. Each quatrain rhymes internally on alternate lines: ABAB, the final two lines rhyme on the last syllable. Each line is ten syllables. Traditional forms favor archaic linguistic conventions, though these are not mandatory.
This is my first stab at poetry in at least fifty years, and my first sonnet, ever. It was something of a challenge. Because of the constraints, every word must be weighed against every other. You do a lot of counting of syllables on your fingers. The forced brevity imbues every word with enhanced meaning. It’s equal parts creative endeavor and a problem solving exercise.
Like most complex problems, it follows the Pareto Principle, also known as the 20/80 Principle, because the first 20 percent of the project takes 80 percent of the time and the last 80 percent takes 20 percent of the time. It also turned out to be a surprisingly good cognitive workout for both left and right hemispheres. I might just have to do more of these.
Anyway, here it is. The second quatrain is a reference to Medicare, if it isn’t obvious.
The days, the months, the years, swift do they go.
The arrow of Time flies. All is a blur.
The hourglass empties, grain by grain, and so
Comes this moment; a milestone we incur.
The tally: Five dozen years plus five more,
Hefty, for sure, yet bearing a fine pledge
Of succor, for when old flesh doth spoil or
Trend unsteady; hath lost the vital edge.
Some bear this passage poorly, some with grace.
She is of the latter sort: “No big deal.”
Mane of ginger, eyes of jade, scarce a trace
Of Time’s cruel hand hath etched her fair appeal.
Many years and tears. How much yet awaits?
Not of our bidding, but rather of Fate’s.