The greatest courage is not needed for war,
but for ordinary people growing old.
Like soldiers, the aged are never very far
from death: many are called,
all are chosen. A soldier faces danger
then retreats, but for the old, going back
is not possible; they may hunger
for youth but pray for the luck
of a quick death. When one by one
the body’s systems fail, they must be brave
and face annihilation of the flesh and bone,
the Soul clinging like a shipwrecked sailor, to love;
finally, love is all we are given
to navigate between exhaustion and heaven.

*****

Red Hawk writes: “What inspired this poem is the School of Hard Knocks, surviving on Earth for 83 years, observing the chaos and madness of the human species, 45 years of self observation to see my own inner chaos & madness, and the Objectively Clear understanding that we all die, we all pay for our emanations, our lives, and finally there is the revelation that all & everything is the Love of Our Creator (whatever that is) & we are how that Love manifests in human form; the Love of Our Creator manifests disguised as our life. Following that, the chaos & madness which that Love takes in human beings is the result of it passing through the human mind & being corrupted and perverted by that screening process. Absent the interference of the ego structure, that Love manifests cleanly, clearly, and without judgment.

“The sonnet form is one of my favorite poetry disciplines & owes much to Shakespeare, Keats, & Edna St. V. Millay! Being one given to speaking too much & too often, this discipline has been a tremendous ally in taming that compulsion & mastering the tongue. Rhyme, though not in favor just now, is another tremendous discipline: it opens the gateway to the unknown—I may begin with a plan or an idea, but the demands of the rhyme send me at once into unknown territory: I don’t know what or how will come next to satisfy the demand of the rhyme and now I am subject to intuition & inspiration, the opening to the Divine.

“Red Hawk (aka Robert Moore) is not an Indian name, nor was it ever intended to be one or pretend to be one; it is an Earth name, given by Mother Earth many years ago after a 4-day water fast at the Buffalo River in an effort to save my life in one of the darkest periods of my life. Given to me during one of the worst ice storms in recent Arkansas history, it was given as an answer to prayer. It came about through conscious labor, prayer and wish, and was paid for by intentional suffering and remorse. It indicates a deep love & reverence for the Earth and how it has shaped my life. It is an honoring of Conscience and of the source which named me: our Mother Earth. To not acknowledge Her gift would be to disrespect Her and Her power to name and direct the course of my life; I am Her legitimate son. As the illegitimate son of unknown parents, Robert Moore is my adopted name given to me by 2 people who died of alcoholism; I honor it and them by the way I live my life.
You can google many of my books at Amazon, or find many of them at www.hohmpress.com. The book on self observation is now in 14 languages.”

‘Old Age Requires the Greatest Courage’ was first published in Rattle.

Photo: “Red Hawk” by Kiesha Jean is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.