Getting Older

by Joseph Geskey

“...The marriage / not the month’s rapture.” Jack Gilbert, “The Abnormal Is Not Courage”

Maybe it’s the instinct and impulse

of immediate gratification that nature

cautions us against. Eliot’s withered

hyacinths perfuming trash, or Thomas

raging like a man looking for a fight

in the dying of the light. Outdoor hikes

through fields of bunch grass always

taking the same route. Spalding’s catchfly,

it’s demure white star-shaped flowers

in bloom after a season of dormancy.

Not interested in becoming peacock feathers

of colorful petals in landscaped gardens,

or to be pulled from the ground and chosen

to be part of the bridal bouquet. Demonstrating

what scientists call negative senescence,

improving survival as the plant ages,

its genes determined to experience sun

and wind until infinity, and what it feels like

to be both simultaneously warm and cool,

unlike us, who suffer the ravages

of cellular insurrection, the beneficial

stubbornness of growing deep roots.

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Joseph Geskey is a physician who resides in Dublin, Ohio. His first book of poetry, Alms for the Ravens, was published in 2024 by Main Street Rag Publishing Company. Broken Tribe Press will publish his second poetry collection, Vigil, in 2026. His poems have appeared in Poetry East, Tar River Poetry, Roanoke Review, Cloudbank, and many others. Please visit josephgeskey.com for further details.