BARB PINE 1989
1989 My husband was regularly crossing the country captaining an airliner, and I was often a passenger, traveling as a public speaker—a minor speaker as the world of speakers goes, but having fun. For two more years before our move to Washington, home was southern California; our children were married or not, finishing or starting college, living in Maui, Seattle, and Tacoma. I had begun using my Master’s degree in Theology, and being made aware that some men of the church found that a nuisance. Women and Theology—like steak sauce on ice cream, they were convinced. But it was 1989. Much has changed since then, including my age, some men’s attitudes, our hometown, and my theology. But this posting is about a birthday. A fiftieth.
IT DOES NO GOOD TO TALK ABOUT IT
November 1989
It does no good to talk about it
So, I’m going to say just this.
Fifty is a nice fine year,
It’s “’F’s” and “T’s” fall on the ear
With softness one should never fear.
At least, at fifty, I still can hear.
I like the sound of twenty-five.
It’s pert, and always so alive.
It’s fashion statement I can wear,
But even that cannot repair
The fact of falling breasts and thighs
And what about those failing eyes.
But it does no good to talk about it.
My sinus headache’s gone away
But the bags beneath my eyes have stayed.
It can’t have much to do with age,
But it does no good to talk about it.
It does no good to talk about it
So I’m going to say just this,
The extra bulk upon my hips
Has no real tie to potato chips
Or Snickers, smeared upon my lips.
The problem is my clothes don’t fit,
But it does no good to talk about it.
I bent quite low on November twelfth,
To get a pan from the back of a shelf
To bake a cake to my maturing health.
I bent as I’ve bent for years before,
You know, head down,
One knee upon the floor,
The other propped by the cupboard door.
My right arm searching deep within, past cluttered bowls
And the rolling pin.
I stretched precariously, as I usually do,
Then, with an unintended twist of my braced left arm,
I felt my spine send a cruel alarm up to my brain
Which sent it back,
Announcing that I needed slack,
Slack over which I had no control
As I fell into the Cobbler bowl.
The cracking sound accompanying this
Was emitted by my slipping disc.
I had but one sweet silent wish.
I didn’t want to talk about it.
The energy I use to climb our hill
In record time
Is resting somewhere in my mind, quite
Disinclined to be expended.
It is as though my youth has ended.
But it does no good to talk about it.
It does no good to talk about it.
Still, I want to say just this,
Not my father, but my husband’s grey,
I knit now. I eat from trays.
My children have begun to marry,
Finish school,
Price a baby’s carriage.
My dogs and I turn in at eight,
I’d rather die than stay out late,
I need strong coffee, not debate.
Fifty is a nice fine mark
But not a place for me to park.
Sixty—once far away as heck—
Is madly breathing down my neck
I just don’t want to talk about it.
THIRTY YEARS LATER
