Poetry Sunday: Ode to Aging Bodies by Jan Mandell

I try to read at least one poem each day, generally picking at random, and occasionally, that randomness leads me to something that is absolutely perfect. Like this poem written by a poet I'd never heard of but who might have had me in mind when she wrote this. See if it resonates with you, too.

Ode to Aging Bodies

by Jan Mandell

Aging bodies
wake to blue veins

that pop up
and travel like river tributaries
over paper thin skin
pocked with freckles, tags and blotches
that look like unidentified sections
of abstract art

Aging bodies
Rise up to the chatter and 
creaking sounds of thin, porous bone
that feel like cheap metal pipes
refitting poorly into their stubborn mates

Waking up the aging body is familiar
like an attempt to turn over
the frozen engine of a used car
left out overnight
in a below zero day
in the dead of Minnesota winter  

The ache and noise of an aging body
is like a constant companion,
a highly extroverted friend 
who simply won’t shut up, 
yet is there thru it all.   

This is an ode to aging bodies
who cough and spatter and wheeze like sounds of old cars,
who drive thru the day anyway
making poetry from pock marks, skin tags, speckled hands
and remain unbothered 
by the constant twitch and crunch of bone grinding into thinning cartilage

Rather they hear this noise as music,
a jazz riff or a smooth soul remix, 
a moan of an old-time blues band. 
Lulling the aging body back to sleep. 

If blessed and favored
aging bodies wake up the next day 
to the twitch, crunch and chatter and of thin, porous bones 
To the pulse of blue veins 
The feel of wrinkled, sagging skin 
The sound of an old time blues band 

Calling to every aging body
to rise up
And do it all again