One of the fullest satisfactions of old age is that your children can have become, in spite of you and almost imperceptibly, your peers. Fully grown, easily your equal with regard to most of the nuances of maturity and experience, and your superior on any number of subjects, not least technology, they populate your circle with a sensibility different from your own, and at the same time, trust-worthily. Furthermore, they have become among your longest and most intimate friends—if you’re lucky—which I am. They can even be traveled with.

Visiting family in Tempe, Arizona last month, my daughter and I ran across some images of old men in the Phoenix Art Museum and the ASU Ceramics Research Center and Archives. Nudes, naked old men. Unlike paintings from the Old Masters, Eric Fischl, an old but contemporary master, exhibited some rather unflattering depictions that raised the perennial question: Are Truth and Beauty equivalents? (I say “No,” but hear Keats out.) 

“In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

When old age shall this generation waste,

                Thou [the urn, remember] shalt remain, in midst of other woe

Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,

         "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all

                Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

In Tempe, AZ, here is a half-naked Fischl, Study for Portrait of the Artist as an Old Man. Now, my daughter can credit the  subject matter of “old dudes” as “totally fine,” the poses “interesting,” and “the painting style engaging.” Fair enough, but not Beautiful, not even merely beautiful. An interesting palette, perhaps, and brushwork, but images of naked old men, honest images, are not beautiful. Which is not to say that there is not some truth, even much truth—along with humor and irreverence and, alas, pathos. But the aged bodies of undraped old men are not beautiful and cannot, I fear, be made so. No kouros, here, no Doryphorous, no charioteer, no Dying Gaul.

An old face, on the other hand, can be supremely, sublimely beautiful: i.e. the portrait busts of ancestral Romans. The beauty of dignitas and mortality. Old men, keep your pants and shirts on, buttoned! 

78 Whistles

There are downtimes in the resistance, at least for retired amateurs like myself. One can tolerate only so much virtue in a day, even virtue in defiance of the non-stop malevolence effluent out of Washington, D.C. these months now. As if the virtue itself were tainted, ever so slightly, by the malignancy that spawned it. Non-violence provoked by violence, alas, seems to carry a seed of violence within it, which can be checked behaviorally, but not imaginatively. (How many government officials have I terminated in my daydreams? With extreme prejudice.)

Last week’s downtime, though, produced this poem, in praise of de-escalation. Violence free. 

78 Whistles

A Gordian knot of whistle cords lies

on the table before the old man, the

nickel-plated whistles nesting therein.

He pulls on one whistle, the knot tightens.

He pulls on a cord end, the knot tightens.

“What the . . . How the fuck? . . Who the fuck?” he thinks.

It is what cord does if left to itself.

A retired Ph.D., he’ll figure it out.

It just takes time. Patience. To untangle.

In time, seventy-eight whistles are free.

 

Winter is here. The ICEmen cometh

in brown shirts—faceless, bulky, and armed.

They prowl the streets for our brown neighbors

in SUVs with out-of-state plates.

Pepper-spray ever at the ready.

Tear-gas, side-arms, and assault-rifles

                              vs.

 Whistles, cell-phones, yellow vests—us.

 With losses, yes, yet we hold our own.

68th Winter

 

The Furor’s brown shirts have descended in force upon our city. Last week an ICE trooper killed one of our citizens in a neighborhood not far away. Shot her in the face, point blank. I attended her vigil/protest. The administration’s Big Lies to follow.

While we are not Nazi Germany yet, the government’s aspirations seem to be clearly in that direction and credibly well on the way. For someone who has known sixty-seven years of relative freedom—i.e. white, male, middle-class freedom—I find the change to dangerously not-so-free and the new demands of civic resistance considerable. Even the relatively simple protest marches and the ICE watches require dressing for the frigid weather now and the treacherously icy footing. Much more to learn and do. It would appear to be a long haul in a dark winter.

Old and retired, I have the time, and if less energy than I once had, I’ve read my history and retain much memory. And if we aged late-Boomers needed a sense of purpose—I didn’t, but you know, shit happens and it’s sometimes big—the GOP’s embrace of fascism, racism, and Christian nationalism makes for a wide field of opportunity to discover it: that is, opposing, well, EVIL.

So, they say, freedom isn’t free. No, it isn’t. It requires time, energy, treasure, and, apparently, the blood of young moms trying to get out of the way.