Watch the Aged

An English rendition from the original in Afrikaans.

Watch the aged.
Their grey faces eroded by time and labour;
the radiant youth, once lustful like fawn bucks,
is flaked away; their skins tainted with rust;
the down-thin-hair lies thinly over chick-bare-heads.

Imagine under all the layers of clothing (necessary
to keep the snail-oozed-circulation from setting),
those down-to-earth (for earth you are and earth you’ll be again)
withered aged bodies ..... aged flesh tanned to leather
by life ..... by the vanity of life – all for not.

Death comes. There’s no hurrying her.
Her steps, each step, unwavering
without misstep without spraining or swaying
like an ox on the plough field comes death.

Also God sees the aged and shakes his head.
Not in disapproval, but in empathy...
No, God forbid! What does God know of growing old?
But God, more than any other spectator, always recognises the tragedy:
The weathered just born – breathes in – dashes through curiosity,
lust, responsibility and weathered old age – breathes out –
like a flower.

Listen to the aged voice. The blazing anima/animus, that was once
stoked high in a moment of orgasmic sweet sex
waned to moist quivering lukewarmness – gibbering like urine.
Yes even in the piss you hear it. The bladder has no more ambition.
The sluices are lame and without water pressure.

Worst are the eyes: jewels that turned into dull alluvial stones.
It’s the longing in the eyes that are worst; the acknowledgement, the forced
recognition that the oil is finished, the wick is burned up,
even the lantern is brittle. Regardless the fighting spirit, the defeat,
the surrender is unavoidable. She won. She always wins.

But God does not pity his withered children,
‘cause God knows that life is larvation; death is pupation.