Apple-Headed Doll - July 4 2023

 

Apple Headed Doll

July 4 2023

The rotten-apple face

of advancing age.

The boggy features

deepened furrows

collapsing flesh,

inelastic skin

mottled complexion.

Who knows

how the ears and nose got bigger

while everything else shrank,

or why what little hair is left

went wispy and grey

and grows where you'd least expect it.

The turkey neck, of course

gave it all away

even before the rot set in.

But when you look into the eyes

there can be no doubt

the person peering out

is the same,

bright intelligent eyes

as curious and alive

as ever,

the sapphire blue

as vital and arresting.

And what you'll never realize

until you, too, are old

is that he's just as bewildered

by the passage of time

as were you when you discovered

that this aging octogenarian

was once actually young.

That the old

weren't always this way.

That, like you

they once felt like time was endless.

And that the young man

is still in there

despite outward appearances.

Just as an orphaned apple

abandoned in the gutter

still contains its seeds,

concealed

in the soft brown pulp

and shrivelled skin.

The beauty of the seed;

small, and self-contained

and so cleverly made,

with all the sustenance it needs

to begin life,

all the knowledge

needed to live well.

Harrison Ford is once again Indiana Jones in another iteration of the action movie franchise. Here he is at the Cannes premiere. I can easily see the handsome younger man in this, but there is no mistaking the characteristic features of the aging face on even this timeless leading man. My thoughts immediately went to folk art and the apple headed doll. The poem quickly followed.