Moving to old age

How quietly I moved to old age, 

a snail sliding toward the wood!

How could Time walk me to Death

grey me without my permission?

Zero could expand this fast

like  nightfall for some child

playing through the supper hour.

This creeping, crawling process

seducing me to view ME at prime

holds me in procession

while my flesh flakes away.

What wonder at the play

of Time, Flesh and Sister Death

the tide-in, tide-out of living

of being born at the Breaking Day.

The trip from womb to "slow-down"

is sure a subtle leap;

on this I've reached my "Senior Years"'

chauffeured by mem'ries growing dim.

*To enter into the realm of contemplation one must in a certain sense die: but this death is in fact the entrance into a higher life.

-Thomas Merton

*...contemplation is a sudden gift of awareness, an awareness to the Real within all that is real.

-Thomas Merton

*...we are words that are meant to respond to Him, to answer Him, to echo Him, and even in some way to contain Him and signify Him.

-Thomas Merton

*...the contemplative is at the same time, question and answer.

-Thomas Merton