January 2024
Peter Witt
pwitt46@gmail.com
Bio Note: I am a Texas poet and a retired university professor. Besides poetry I am a birder, photographer, and family history researcher, with a book about my aunt published by the Texas A&M Press. My poetry has been published on various sites including The Wise Owl, The Blue Bird Word and Beatnik Cowboy. I live in a retirement community with my wife and the memory of our beloved dog, Quigley.

Pelicans, Sandcastles, and Eternity
We're taught ashes to ashes but it's really from nowhere to oblivion, a short time of consciousness on earth, where the years start slowly (me not being able to wait to start kindergarten) and speed up decade by decade until I sit in a wheelchair waiting to be bathed wondering where the years have gone. In my dotage I dream of building sandcastles on a sun swept beach while pelicans ride the trade winds across the wave crests. Middle years are dotted with financial anxiety, retirement filled with travel once delayed by work-related responsibilities, final years dotted with arrival of knicks and bodily failures, the pelicans fading from long-term memory. Doctor says to prioritize my time since the batteries are fading, friends come to visit with that look of helpless concern, a kindly attendant washes my hair and tells me about sandcastles she builds at the beach with her daughter. I tell her about my dreams, she brings me a picture of a pelican, I smile as she wipes the spittle off my chin, both knowing oblivion is near at hand.

The Gathering
Retirement community living is okay if you don't mind a parade of folks passing on, some from "natural causes," others from sudden disease or accident. Too often residents gather in the auditorium to celebrate the life of someone we barely knew, pay respects to family members we've never met, eat cake, drink a glass of ice tea and return to our units thankful it wasn't our name on the obituary, but wondering if we're next and whether vanilla cake with lemon icing or chocolate cake with fudge icing should be served when it's our time to move on, or if our families, most of whom we haven't seen in years, will splurge out of guilt for a big buffet with a wine bar to show how much they cared about us despite their lack of attention over our declining years. Having been to three recent "celebrations," I've decided to throw a big party next week, invite everybody except my family, spring for a huge buffet and an open bar, order two cakes, one vanilla with lemon icing, other chocolate with fudge icing. I'll arrange for a pianist and vocalist to play show tunes, mostly bawdy, some cringe-worthy, while I sit on the sidelines enjoying the raised eyebrows from the proper types, knowing that everybody will appreciate the free food and drink, not having to interact with my strange family members, and relishing the lack of vacant eulogizing and prayers.
©2024 Peter Witt
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