You Want to Grow Old Like the Carters

Former President Jimmy Carter and Lifetime Companion  Rosalynn Carter
Former President Jimmy Carter and Lifetime Companion Rosalynn Carter

(For Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter of Plains, Georgia)

© 2010 By Alice Walker

Let other leaders
Retire
To play golf
& write
Memoirs
About bombing
Villages
They’ve never seen.

Growing old
Presents a peril
They may not
Expect.

It is to lose
One’s soul
In trivia
& irrelevance
The nerve
Endings
Blunted
By the constant
Pressure
Of moral
Indifference.

Growing old
A curse:
Not even
Generally speaking
Able
To relate
To whoever
Shares

Your house. Not the mansion
You inhabit
On the
Lovely stolen hill
Above the sea
Or the interior one:
The darkened
Desolate
Shack.

You want to grow old
Like
The Carters;
Curing blindness
&
Building houses
For
The Poor;

Making friends of those
Who believe
They must fight.

You want to grow old
Like
The Carters
Holding hands
With someone
You love
&
Riding bicycles
Leisurely
Where the ground
Is well known
& perfectly
Flat.

You want to find
And keep to the path
Laid down
Inside you
Such a long time
Ago.

You want to grow old
Like
The Carters:
Serene. Eyes
Twinkling
To be accused
Of
Not getting
It right.

Upfront, upright.
Speaking what to you is true.

A person rich in Mothers.
Beloved.

And:
Honoring what is black
In you.

***