I am among the old and vulnerable
‘Testimony of the Untested’, a daily lockdown poetry series by Robert Alan Jamieson, who is in recovery from a corona-like virus. You can read his other works here.
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The Government has issued information
relating to my current circumstance.
Therefore it must be carefully considered,
by a chap of what is now a certain vintage.
That I am quite old, I cannot
sensibly deny,
cut open, cracked and broken, confused, and blind
to some degree. What I thought I once knew
no longer holds. The world grows strange,
full of things I can’t be bothered learning,
like acronyms, or what Love Island is.
I forget my many passwords
endlessly.
But aren’t we all so vulnerable – say, to a plum stone lodged?
Regardless of our years, it takes no time to choke,
to slip beneath the wheel of that oncoming bus, or fall
and bash our heads as we exit the shower, half-awake.
Gone, out like a light, this *us*, this *we*, the *I*,
yet aren’t some still catching buses, eating plums,
at ninety-three?
I’m not convinced you’ve researched me,
the suffering endured, or so far dodged.
I fear, alone at home here, sick, that I remain
another small statistic you don’t know.
I do take care, and so should you.
Aye, good, thanks.
I fell off the ladder yesterday.
Fortunately, I didn’t come to any harm. Years of cycling, skating and roller blading help.
Otherwise, I might have been another “heedless pensioner” statistic.
Your poems are a pleasing antidote to the Goverment Information leaflets/broadcasts that swirl about just now and are never pleasant.
The passage of the years do not, as you know, make you old Alan. As Einstein says ‘ time is an illusion.’ It only seems like last week, that in an act of hospitality and largesse I gave up my mattress in the dunny of R L Stevenson’s birthplace to a man/boy of around 19 years, who was telling me, with some assurance of his destiny to become a writer.
I just love these poems. Thank you. Keep them coming.