Aging is inevitable

I rear alot and love it.  That wasn't so for many years.  However, the other night in class we had to read this poem and write about it.  I was so moved by her words and the feelings it evoked as well as what if pulled out of me that I wanted to share it.  I hope I am not doing something unethical by posting it.
Certainly gave me many thoughts to ponder, what about you?

·         "Ethics" by Linda Pastan

 

In ethics class so many years ago 

our teacher asked this question every fall

if there were a fire in a museum
which would you save, a Rembrandt painting
or an old woman who hadn't many
years left anyhow? Restless on hard chairs
caring little for pictures or old age
we'd opt one year for life, the next for art 
and always half-heartedly. Sometimes
the woman borrowed my grandmother's face
leaving her usual kitchen to wander
some drafty, half-imagined museum. 
One year, feeling clever, I replied
why not let the woman decide herself?
Linda, the teacher would report, eschews 

the burden of responsibility. 
This fall in a real museum I stand
before a real Rembrandt, old woman,
or nearly so, myself. The colors
within this frame are darker than autumn,  

darker even than winter - the browns of earth,
though earth's most radiant elements burn 
through the canvas. I know now that woman 

and painting and season are almost one
and all beyond saving by children.