Seasons bookended by leaves on park benches ~ Malinda Words

Pic by Rasmi Sporny

When you are just 27 or thereabouts, being 70 years old is understandably something that can be described as ‘terribly strange.’ A few weeks ago I asked a group of undergraduates, probably in their late teens or early twenties if they can imagine themselves being 35. ‘No,’ was the consensus. I got the sense that they are convinced of their immortal youthfulness.

They are right. They won’t age. No one does. In a sense.

Paul Simon, when he wrote the lyrics of ‘Old friends,’ cannot be faulted for thinking of ’70’ as being terribly strange and this goes for the featured singer Art Garfunkel. They are both 82 now and are more ‘friends from a long time ago,’ than ‘old friends’ but that’s beside the point.

Garfunkel in an interview with Jim Clash for the Forbes Magazine in 2014 offered some interesting reflections on age:

I’m 73 and feel pretty vital. [The line] was intended to be how terribly strange to be 70 when you’re an old man sitting on a park bench with your buddy, and you make bookends with him. But as I turned 70, I remember thinking ‘piece of cake. Drive right through, man.’ If you want to know the truth, then came 71 and it wasn’t such a piece of cake. It slips in on your lower back, your frame. You handle a long flight to Japan much worse than you used to. But in terms of mental attitude, the passion you have for your next project, 70 is effortless. Artists bounce from project to project, and I live with the fun of what’s next. If anything, I burn stronger at this age.

Not everyone does, burn stronger at and beyond 70 that is. And light that does burn bright can suddenly burn pale, as the song written by Mike Batt for the film ‘Watership Down’ sung by Garfunkel goes. The author of the book the film was based on, Richard Adams, is said to have hated the song. Excellent book by the way.

‘Old friends’ is not a sixties or seventies song, it’s a song people of a particular generation remember when they turn 70. A seventy-song, then. I might too and if I do reach that age I could also talk about fire, burning bright or pale and what has or has not slipped on my lower back.

I remembered the song when I saw two beautiful photographs that my friend Rasmi Sporny had posted, one of autumn leaves stuck between the boards of a wooden park bench and another which focused on a single leaf. Beautiful compositions in terms of noticing the color combination and getting really nice angles which made leaves and wood say so much.

Old friends, old friends
Sat on their park bench like bookends
A newspaper blown through the grass
Falls on the round toes
Of the high shoes of the old friends

Pic by Rasmi Sporny

What do leaves say to one another when they settle down on park benches? Are their conversations different at different times of the year? Do they compare their respective colours? Do they speak of seasons that are done and seasons yet to arrive? Do they bookend literatures of delight, hope, regret, equanimity or the solitudes they’ve observed?

We are but leaves passing through seasonal continents. Age lodges us between boards of a wooden park bench. If we are lucky we have fraternal leaves to exchange notes about things that slipped onto our lower backs. We could of course also talk of what came before and what might come next.

And we could laugh and laugh and laugh.

They may be seen by a beautiful person who, if asked, might yet say that it must be terribly strange to be seventy or, who knows, might make a mental note such as ‘how indescribably cute!’

We might be asked, ’may I take a picture?’

We would probably smile and say ‘as many as you wish!’

We might be oblivious to the presence and capture. That too is possible.

The timber of our lives are less resilient than the weather-proofed stuff that park benches are made of. So many years. So many leaves. So many colours. So many memories curling up in ways that exasperate, deceive or make everything seem unbelievably magical.

Let us gently on the leaves that clog the sidewalks. Their rustle could be deep and philosophical discussion about seasonality. Or love. And let’s say hello to park benches: they may have known many old friends who’ve had their days as bookends. And let's resolve to do what's necessary to remain 27 even when we are 72 -- like seeing leaves and benches and imagining old friends and bookends.

['The Morning Inspection' is the title of a column I wrote for the Daily News from 2009 to 2011, one article a day, Monday through Saturday. This is the 268th article in the new series that began in December 2022. Links to previous articles are given below]

16 November 2023

Seasons bookended by leaves on park benches

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