Old friends, old friends sat on their parkbench like bookends
A newspaper blowin’ through the grass
Falls on the round toes of the high shoes of the old friends
Old friends, winter companions, the old men
Lost in their overcoats, waiting for the sun
The sounds of the city sifting through trees
Settles like dust on the shoulders of the old friends
Can you imagine us years from today, sharing a park bench quietly
How terribly strange to be seventy
Old friends, memory brushes the same years, silently sharing the same fears
–Simon and Garkunkel
They used to live in-town, but now live 15 minutes away from us in the upscale retirement home that takes great pride in caring for its residents. I can’t help thinking of one without the other – like the salt-and-pepper shakers they go together, and have been married close to 60 years. It was hard for them to move from the house they built together, and they have crammed as much as they could take of a house worth’s of furniture into a three-room apartment. While it’s not exactly crowded, the proportions seem small as I walk between the table chairs two steps into the living space with the tired couch, the stained armchair, and the straight-backed rocking chair. The furniture is meticulously arranged, if dated – she has always liked things “just so.” Their most precious trinkets are relegated to one low shelf. Just beyond the sliding glass door is a concrete patio six feet on a side before a common lawn. She, who used to grow jungles from tiny shoots, now fusses over the pitiful planter basket of flowers outside that doesn’t look as if it will survive the next month. She drops cracker crumbs onto the patio to coax the squirrel living in the nearby tree to come visit. This squirrel is fat.
Continue reading “Tempus Fugit”
