by Joel Savishinsky
 |
The top of Mount Rainier is no longer the top of Mount Rainier. The frozen ice cap on top of Washington’s iconic mountain—recognized for generations as the tippy top—is melting as the atmosphere warms. Now, that frozen dome has sunk below a rocky patch on the mountain’s southwest rim, crowning that spot as the new highest point. —Seattle Times, October 6, 2024. Photo: Eric Gilbertson poses Sept. 21 on Mount Rainier’s southwest rim, the new highest point of the mountain, with the Columbia Crest, the mountain’s former highest point, in the background. (Courtesy of Ross Wallette) |
Perhaps it is too much
to expect any of us to
stand tall in these times,
to measure up to what
we once were at
the peak of our reputations.
Maybe this is what happens
when you’ve stood for ages
with your head in the clouds,
unaware of how each year
grinds you down a bit,
too busy looking down on
everyone else to notice
that people don’t
look up at you quite
in the way they used to.
Yes, your admirers will still
grapple with your magnitude,
admire your posture and
profile, but as the decades
wear on and wear you down,
like the rest of us you will
probably need to learn
to get over yourself.
If not, you’ll only get more
upset, lose your cool,
blow your top, and
shrink even more
in our estimation.
Joel Savishinsky moved to the Pacific Northwest in 2014 at the age of 70. In the years since then, he has lost at least 1 ¼ inches of height. He is a retired professor of anthropology and gerontology, a Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee, and author of Breaking the Watch: The Meanings of Retirement in America, winner of the Gerontological Society of America’s book-of-the-year prize. In 2023, The Poetry Box published his collection Our Aching Bones, Our Breaking Hearts: Poems on Aging. His work has also appeared in Beyond Words, Blink-Ink, The Decolonial Passage, The New York Times, The New Verse News, Passager, and Willawaw.
