Old Men Talking

By W. Roger Carlisle

​

 

Our group of men make our weekly walk through the azaleas,

around the roses on a familiar circular path

into the bamboo garden.

Creaky knees, grey beards, wrinkled

faces stop and stare at the

warm sun splitting the clouds.

 

Our polite, incomplete sentences confront

the same topics we have been discussing for

twenty years, the pain of divorce, the woman who left,

the failures of the voters and the government.

 

We relive the peak moments

when we made the winning basket,

look for words to convince us the spaces

between us can be bridged, hope that secrets will evaporate

in the light of our sacred chorus, that we can all move from

our isolation and find some kernels of shared truth.

 

But, today we are off center, our curtain of denial has fallen,

we see what’s always been there: restless death,

nearer by the day, making all of us wonder how and

when we shall die, reminding us we can’t escape.

 

We shudder together as we discuss the stark terror

of dying, that sure extinction following our every step.

There is no cure for this cold ending only the solace

of walking like a herd of sheep with your friends.

​

​​

​

W Roger Carlisle is a 79-year-old, semi-retired physician. He currently volunteers and works in a free medical clinic for patients living in poverty. He grew up in Oklahoma and was a history major in college. He has been writing poetry for 14 years. He is on a journey of returning home to better understand himself through poetry. He hopes he is becoming more humble in the process.