There’s nothing so easy

as dropping something.

A fork under the table.

A vitamin pill into the corner

behind the toilet seat.

A sock under your bed

when you’re just about finished

folding your wash.

It’s just a matter of letting go

a second too soon

and watching the thing

float out of your hand

down to the floor.

But now,

but slowly,

year by year,

something difficult has been added

to the simplicity of dropping.

It’s the picking it up!

It’s the bending,

kneeling,

contorting your body to a point

where it can’t contort no more.

When an easy touch your toes movement

morphs into some

geometric, issosilized, isometric

experience of impossibility

and your body knows

it ain’t gonna get any easier,

each attempt becoming more frustrating

as decade by decade goes by….

Then comes the inevitable moment

when each of us must submit

to a new commandment

life gives us all.

“IF IT’S UNDER A CHAIR,

JUST LEAVE IT THERE.”

At least until the grand kids arrive.

They can bend like a rubber band

to recover that diamond stud pin

your tipsy self

bumbled under the dresser

last New Years Eve!

Then they can spring back up,

quick, straight and alive!

So, let ‘um,

please.

It’s good for their ego

and great for your knees.