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Category Archives: tragicomedy

A White Hair: a poem

12 Friday Jul 2013

Posted by essaybee2012 in "Seven Ages of Man" (Shakespeare 1623), aging, As You Like It (Shakespeare 1623), death, flesh, humanity, knowledge, now, one and many, soul, technology, The Blind Men and the Elephant, tragicomedy, William Shakespeare (1564-1616), wisdom

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Tangles of whitened wrist-hairs,

microscopic as I lie on the bed

with head at rest,

left ear pressed against the pillow,

right arm stretched in relief

beside the lens’ of my eyes.

~

Nearsighted, so glasses off.

~

Hazel irises to leathery skin,

or is it crinkly tan—

a writer’s fancy.

~

I’m tired,

embarrassed by revelations of aging.

~

Wiser and wiser,

yet nearer the grave—

how tragic this comedy!

~

Will technology arrive in time

to preserve knowledge—

yet replace flesh,

humanity—

my soul even?

~

Never the soul!

~

Ultimately, a silly question

with no answer worth tailing,

for any tail leads but

to another head.

~

There is no future,

yet, a past to glean from—

and the present between—

this tick of wisened action,

and that tock of participation

in the construct and movement

of the proverbial elephant

that the blind, Hindoo men examined—

the ones among the many

without whom the many would not be one.

~

Shakespeare penned it as:

“All the world’s a stage,”

where his “Seven Ages of Man”

are untwined by curtain’s close.

~

My hairs whitened now,

regenerating still,

each suffering stagefright

 in its present role.

~

by S.A. Bort / 12 July 2013

Above photo:  by S.A. Bort

Below photo:  artist unknown

For more on the story of “The Blind Men and the Elephant” as well as the idea of “one and many,” please see my previous post:  The One and the Many:  The Blind Men and the Elephant, plus two.

Blind Men and Elephant

Blind Men and Elephant

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