Magnolia Blooms and Senescence

 

How The Aged Walk, And Stand, and Stare

You amble down the street, limping and hobbling, and the magnolia blooms are standing tall and white on the southern magnolia trees in the Florida sunshine, and you halt your slow, unsteady traipse to stand staring at them, those blooms, for there is so little left to live for and hope for, and you wish you could stare at the blooms long enough to stare their stark whiteness into your palsied head, your withered arms, your very self, imbue your once vital, now senescent flesh with fresh whiteness. But you can’t.

[excerpted from the book by U.R. Bowie, Here We Be. Where Be We?]