Thirty

Many years ago
I was sent
to spy out the land
beyond the age of thirty.

And I stayed there
and didn't go back to my senders,
so as not to be made
to tell
about this land

and made
to lie.

- Yehuda Amichai

***

30. Keats never made it this far. Nor Shelley. And Schubert, poor syphilitic Schubert, had just over a year left.

These old P.M.s are gruesome.

Why do I do this to myself? Indulge in these gentle luxuries? In this regret that is not even regret but the shadow of my disappointment for the sun I could not touch.

A ritual preposterous but necessary, like knocking on a door when you know no one will answer.

***

Beyond a point, every birthday becomes a monument to failure, a milestone marking how far I have failed to come.

My life a ladder of lines behind a door that now belongs to someone else.

***
Will you look at this? I've been officially middle-aged for all of 90 minutes and I've already I've started to whine. By the time this day is over I'll probably be complaining about my sciatica.