don’t outlive yourself,
panic, or break a hip
or spit purée at the staff
at the end of gender,
never a happy ender –
yet in the pastel light
of indoors, there is a lady
who has distilled to love
beyond the fall of memory.
She sits holding hands
with an ancient woman
who calls her brother and George
as bees summarise the garden.
----Les Murray (1938-2019) Australian poet, from Taller When Prone, 2010
