Their little aerial game

Dropping sticks is a game

the summer crows have learned to

play, flying from May

to September, one above the other. 

The higher lets his toy fall through the

air to the other of the pair,

who returns the favor.  We gulp

to see these evening acrobats climb so

high, printed black against the sky

above the blacker hills.

They become absorbed in their little

game. It seems so tame:

one drops a stick, the other catches it,

what more is there to

say? Just that every day

my heart drops with it

through the empty air, till a strange

and gay and capricious bird, unknown to

me, catches that heart, and it soars again.

“Dropping Sticks,’’ by Frank Robinson,  an Ithaca, N.Y.-based poet, art historian and a former director of the Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University and the Museum of Art at the Rhode Island School of Design

“American Crow,’’ by John Jacob Audubon

Frank Robinson: What we're left with

Note from Robert Whitcomb:

Every year at this time, a longtime friend of mine, Frank Robinson, an art historian, poet and essayist who used to run the art museums at the Rhode Island School of Design and Cornell University, sends a poem from his home in Ithaca, N.Y. Here’s this year’s:

Senior Moments, 111

(written from a senior community)

A notice in our auditorium:

“Dear Alzheimer’s Patients:

Please don’t talk during the concert.

It disturbs the other guests.’’

xxx

Of course we love our children —

without them,

we wouldn’t have our grandchildren.

xxx

The challenge here:

You’re nobody now,

but you can’t forget

you were somebody once.

xxx

        Just in Case

Of course, I’ll go first,

but just in case,

please write a note

to your successor

(not replacement, no, never!)

a brief note explaining me.

xxx

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MOURNERS FOR HIRE –

YOU DIE, WE CRY

a public service for every occasion,

every gender, every religion,

loud or soft,

and all you can eat at the wake.

xxx

       Waiting for My Knee Replacement

A few helpful comments:

“It’s very painful – worse than a hip.”

“It’s a big deal.’’

“You’re walking so much better now,

you really don’t need an operation.’’

And then someone stole my walker –

or rather, walked away with it.

Even my cane clicks

every time I take a step.

Thank God

they operate tomorrow.

xxx

       The Day After

People are so nice to me,

I must be very sick. 

xxx

Here,

you’re out of step

If you’re perfectly healthy.

xxx

Each of us is known for our illness,

and each day,

we’re either better or worse or the same.

xxx

We grow smaller year by year.

They say it’s age,

But maybe, too,

it’s the way that time

keeps lopping off

our jobs, our homes, our friends.

We’re left with who we are,

nothing more, but nothing less.

xxx

We have so little time left,

we have  all the time in the world.

xxx

My wish for everyone here –

a healthy life, an easy death,

and a lot of money left over.

Frank Robinson: 'Senior Moments'/December greetings

"Senior Moments

(written in a retirement community)

Two friends talking to each other,

each one hardly hearing the other.

Such a wonderful democracy –

everyone is old.

For people with a lot of past

and very little future,

what counts is now.

Fragility and strength –

these crowds of people

who should have stayed in bed.

How strange,

after all these years,

not to have a home any more.

In this time of truth,

the only thing to do

is to lie.

“People change.’’

This is the lesson

that we have to learn again.

Too many singles trained to be doubles,

too many workers with nothing to do.

Commune, kibbutz,

New England village,

or resort hotel –

take your pick.

The fear is

I’ll feel too deeply

or I won’t feel deeply enough.

Marriage in old age –

each one waiting for the other

to lose his mind.

“I can remember

a thousand thousand words,

but not the name of my husband.’’

“This is such a funny joke,

every time I tell it,

I laugh.’’

We’re so lucky to be here,

and yet we’d give anything

not to be.

Remembering and forgetting –

diseases of old age.

Each of us knows

how little time there is,

so you’d think we wouldn’t waste it.

At seventy-eight,

I’ve got my health, my hair, my wife –

I’m all set.

This is what it’s like here ---

one long schmooze,

followed by an even longer snooze.

Environmental Poem:

My hair retreats ever year,

like the ice in the Arctic.

If there is a paradise,

I promise to tell you by email

right away.

Canes and ski poles,

walkers and wheelchairs ---

an army on the move.''

-- By Frank Robinson, an Ithaca, N.Y.-based poet, art historian and former head of the art museums at Cornell University and the Rhode Island School of Design. He has written such year-end poems for years.

Frank Robinson: As 2014 pulls away

 

"Pine Needles'' (traditional analog photography) by KRISTI BEISECKER, in the "Visual Alchemy: Tangible Evidence of Experimentation, Discovery and Transformation'' show at Fountain Street Fine Art, Framingham, Mass., Jan. 2-25.

On the bus –

reading about Basho’s travels

on foot.

Strangely,

like Ulysses,

I always thought that home

was a place you could leave.

Unlike most arrivals –

the closer we get,

the less clear, the more unknown.

The amazing thing

is not that we will die,

but that we were alive.

They’re so polite today –

the perfect curve of the waves,

the smooth sheet of foam.

A hundred compromises accepted,

but some turned out better

than expected.

When you’re young,

you think you have choices.

When you’re old,

you think you chose.

It’s so strange,

to be so old and yet so strong,

so strong and yet so old.

Lying in bed,

deciding to make

the first decision of the day.

Tired from doing too much,

tired from doing too little,

but grateful for having the choice.

Which memories

should I sort through today —

what I did, or what I didn’t do?

At my age,

I should be thinking big thoughts,

getting ready.

The world is a patient teacher;

you can fail

as often as you like.

When I drop the leash,

she waits for me to pick it up.

The leash means freedom.

My body was once my slave,

but now,

rebellions are breaking out all over.

I can’t quite give up the idea

I might attract that pretty girl.

I wish

beauty were a kind of pill

that I could take every day

and never overdose.

I put off the moment

when I turn out the light

and admit the day is over.

How strange —

the one thing that lonely people want

is to be left alone.

Beauty —

so much is contained in the word,

implied, regretted, hoped for.

With my wife —

watching the wind

batter the trees.

Frank Robinson is retired director of the Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University, former director of the Museum of Art at the Rhode Island School of Design and an art historian and poet. His end-of-the-year poems are a tradition.