Older, but no wiser

Here I am, an old man in a dry month,
Being read to by a boy, waiting for rain.

So begins Eliot’s poem Gerontion. It’s prefaced by these words:

Thou hast nor youth nor age
But as it were an after dinner sleep
Dreaming of both.

Those lines resonate, although the rest of the poem is not easy.

I can claim nor youth nor age, yet sometimes I feel a weariness akin to the resignation of old age; after the day’s toil, comes amnesia; or is it anaesthesia?

The boy, my RSS feed, reads to me; like the old man, my mind wanders and I only half hear the words. So many posts I’ve starred, meaning to return, but the moment passes as the after dinner dream changes scene.

The month could hardly be said to be dry, but the rain I wait for is of a different kind; one that waters the ground from which fresh words spring.

Thoughts of a dry brain in a dry season.