You Want To Grow Old Like The Carters

Let other leaders Retire To play golf & write Memoirs About bombing Villages They've never seen. Growing old Presents a peril They may not Expect. It is to lose One's soul In trivia & irrelevance The nerve Endings Blunted By the constant Pressure Of moral Indifference. Growing old A curse: Not even Generally speaking Able To relate To whoever Shares Your house. Not the mansion You inhabit On the Lovely stolen hill Above the sea Or the interior one: The darkened Desolate Shack. You want to grow old Like The Carters; Curing blindness & Building houses For The Poor; Making friends of those Who believe They must fight. You want to grow old Like The Carters Holding hands With someone You love & Riding bicycles Leisurely Where the ground Is well known & perfectly Flat. You want to find And keep to the path Laid down Inside you Such a long time Ago. You want to grow old Like The Carters: Serene. Eyes Twinkling To be accused Of Not getting It right. Upfront, upright. Speaking what to you is true. A person rich in Mothers. Beloved. And: Honoring what is black In you.