We all grow old. You are older today than yesterday. This is as true for me (at 57) as for the toddler, the teen, the twenty-something. We grow old.

I'm not afraid of this. I may have been once (and will be again, no doubt!), but today I'm not afraid. The fear has come from the potential loss of what matters less to me now–a supple body that draws attention, prestige and possessions, the knowledge I needed to conquer and control…

But as I age, I'm delighted to find deep satisfaction in simpler, more enduring things, activities and states more likely to last no matter how life evolves (or devolves)–love, for example, and stillness, wonder, awareness. In his poem "On Growing Old," John Masefield yearns to…

    Only stay quiet while my mind remembers
    The beauty of fire from the beauty of embers.

No less beauty in the embers.

Masefield asks only for "wisdom, Beauty, wisdom and passion." (Note the repetition of wisdom and the capitalization of Beauty.) He concludes his poem:

    Give me but these, and though the darkness close
    Even the night will blossom as the rose.

Even night will blossom…

Text and image © 2010 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.