Senescence - May 23 2026

 

Senescence 

May 23 2026



You don’t see the body wasting.

The bones losing strength,

muscles thinning

as their cells die in place,

and organs nestled in fat

under fish-belly skin

that’s pale and pudding soft.

But the human brain is a curious thing,

and at all cost

the failing body protects it.

Even a man in his 80s

can remain sharp and questioning.

His scarecrow hands

with papery skin

stretched over spindly bones

and knotted veins

 — sun-damaged skin

spotted like ripe bananas, beginning to rot —

can still grip a pen

as firmly as ever.

Ink on paper, as he’s always done,

so the mind and hand

are directly in touch.

But there comes a point

when one notices

as if it happened overnight.

When he looks in the mirror

 — which he usually does

fully clothed — 

and sees an elderly man

gazing back at him.

Like bankruptcy

it happens slowly, then all at once;

the waist expands

the torso bloats,

while arms and legs are toothpicks

stuck in a comical body

a child might draw

for kindergarten art.

His machinery is running down

as if programmed for death.

The vanity and pride

we all indulge

 — discreetly

at least back when we were young

and it was thought unmanly to be vain —

left him long ago.

And he’s starting to feel alone

as friend after friend departs,

breezily forgotten

by a world he once bestrode.

But what he’s writing won’t.

His prose, still as strong as ever,

his mind

vital to the end.

I envy and admire him.

I doubt my final book

will be written in my 80s,

when, I suspect

I will have given up on changing the world 

or believing my voice will be heard,

will probably not even care

what comes next.

When I will be propped-up in bed

in the nursing home

with drool down my chin;

unable to lift a pen,

perhaps impatient for death,

and content to let the world

fend for itself.

The late great Barney Frank recently died. I read a short memorial written by a lifelong friend of the ex-Congressman, and was impressed not just that in his final weeks he finished his last book, but that — age notwithstanding — his fierce conviction, passion, and engagement burned as bright as ever. 

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/05/barney-frank-obituary-democrats/687285/

I’m younger and not on my deathbed. Yet I already feel a kind of nihilism toward the future:  between our laughably tragic geopolitics and the complacency toward the climate emergency (I could go on, so much is wrong these days) I’ve largely given up. The thinking is I’ll be gone soon enough; hopefully, soon enough to escape a catastrophic future. I’m certainly under no illusion my words can change anything. 

So I both admire and envy Frank’s sense of agency and commitment. Too bad failing bodies betray still vital brains. Not to mention the unfortunate persistence of ageism:  that the wisdom of the old tends to be ignored – even scorned -- in a youth obsessed culture.

A stylistic note. I’m told that extensive use of the “m-dash” is supposed to be evidence of an AI ghostwriter. As you can see, I love m-dashes and semicolons. Yet I never use AI to write for me. Why would I, when I feel I write better than any AI, not to mention love to write? (I do, however, use it to scrape the internet for research, which is a great saver of both time and frustration). So at the risk of looking like an AI plagiarist, I will continue to use the punctuation I prefer.