Songs for Older Life

By Ron Carey

In Songs for Older Life, Ron Carey celebrates some creative individuals who blossomed in the afternoons, twilights and late evenings of their lives. Some of these are very famous, others are not so . You will discover in their stories an endless source of encouragement and want to find out more about them. In highlighting each individual, Ron has written a poem inspired by their story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Limerick Writers Centre
• Release date: Apr 4, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215476178

Ron Carey

Ron Carey was born in Limerick and lives in Dublin. He is a poet and a creative writing facilitator. Ron only started writing poetry seriously in his sixties. Since then he has been a prize winner and finalist in many international poetry competitions. He received Special Commendation in the Patrick Kavanagh Awards. He has a Diploma in Creative Writing from the Open University and was awarded a Masters in Creative Writing at the University of South Wales. His poetry collection DISTANCE was a shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection UK and Ireland 2016. His second book of poetry Racing Down the Sun (Revival Press) was launched in 2018. Since 2016 he has been running creative writing courses in Limerick and Dublin.

Book preview

‘O unworn world enrapture me.’ – Patrick Kavanagh

Now that we know we are mortal, let us

Spend servitude’s weighty crowns.

Now that we know the sun will rise

Without us, let us ignore the grey sheets

On the laundry-floor of the sky and go

Into the rain-forgiving world.

Now let us tongue the fruits that smack

The lips with surprise; learning the difference

Between something rare and something

Common and see God’s beauty in both.

Now it is time to remember.

We once were creatures who climbed

The cloudy mountains just to breathe;

Who grew old beneath the cooling stars

And listened to the tuning notes of heaven.

We looked for God everywhere, then

In each other, calling this the soul

And this the life-exalted.

Now that we are wise enough to know,

Let us leave these chains in the dust.

Let us give love back a hundredfold

To the people who love us and forgiveness

To those who need it. And let us not sit

Quiet by friendship’s fire when there are

Humans in the East in need of our shelter

And in the West in need of our bread.

The world is beautiful, so let the answer

To all questions be a simple, Yes.

Let us leave the caterpillar’s house and enter

The delight of the wing-spreading Earth.

Ron Carey (2017)

This poem was commissioned by Liz Kelly and Tara Byrne

for Age and Opportunity - Bealtaine Festival in 2017.

Introduction

"The afternoon knows what the morning never suspected." – Robert Frost.

With, Songs for Older Life, I have undertaken to celebrate some creative individuals who blossomed in the afternoons, twilights and late evenings of their lives.

Some of these are very famous, others are not so well known. My hope is that within these pages you will discover in their stories an endless source of encouragement and want to find out more about them.

In highlighting each individual, I have written a poem inspired by their story. But, as any creative person knows, inspiration is a fickle mistress and has led me to some strange places that I never saw coming. In any case, with all the poems, I have tried to feature some aspect of their character, or the times they lived in, to inform your understanding. My hope is that the poems will feed into your appreciation of their work and vice versa.

I have called all the subjects by their first names. I find calling them by their surnames distancing and reducing them to mere facts and figures, when I really want to emphasise they are, or were once, real people of flesh and blood.

I have been asked why I decided on this particular theme. First, it’s close to my heart, as I came late to realising my own creative talents. And because I am aware of how people are discriminated against because they have reached a certain age. Ageism is the most pervasive and subtle of all prejudices because we have all applied it ourselves at some stage in our lives, even to our loved ones.

With, Songs for Older Life, I’m getting my two cents worth in early in the real discussion that must take place as people live longer. I want to help reverse the low expectation of people who are older and instead expect more of them. Young people step up and take their place, they renew and freshen the artistic world, good for them, but we have life experience and a little more horse-sense, I hope!

And, I’ll let you in on a secret; my research shows that people who participate in any creative field live much longer, they are very happy and too busy to stop. Throw away those supplements and diet books, take out your pen, pencil, paint brush and chisel and get stuck into something original, something creative, leave your mark on the world, a big X where the treasure within you was hidden and you uncovered it.

Ron Carey March 2023

Contents

A Song for Older Life

Introduction

George du Maurier

Svengali Explains His Position on the Subject of Trilby

Louise Bourgeois

The Spider

Herb Jeffries

We Are Such Stuff

Marjorie Quarton

Breakfast of Champions

Donnchadh Ó Hámsaigh

The Blind Harpist

Frank Lloyd Wright

Fallingwater

George F. Grant

Now Lies the Nymph

Raymond Chandler

Phillip Marlowe in Waterford

Auguste Rodin

The Gates

James Downing

The Navigator

Leoš Janáček

Rhapsody

Wallace Stevens

Seeing Things

Richard Adams

Rabbit

Mary Wesley

The House by the Sea

Laura Ingalls Wilder

Timetraveller

Frank McCourt

Rainman

Elliott Carter

The Music of Everything

Diana Athill

Fighter Pilot

Dave Brubeck

The Blue Note

Daisy Turner

Blue and