Looking Brittle

If I fall down and break my crown
And bruise my knees and rip my gown
I wonder if you will hear my groans
Will you carry my brittle bones

As age advances to my door
With wrinkled skin and hair turned hoar
Beauty faded like cheap rhinestones
Will you carry my brittle bones

As my parents get old and die
I ponder death and often cry
Great tears and stifle muffled moans
Will you carry my brittle bones

In sleep and waking dreams I dwell
I long for heaven and fear hell
Through death’s door and on paths unknown
Will you carry my brittle bones

Just before I left on vacation I was helping son#1 clean up his house because finally (after nearly 6 months) the insurance company is starting the repairs on their house. This will result in having the house lifted off the foundation so that they can make the needed repairs to the basement and foundation. They will also gut his bedroom. So I was helping him get organized so that all the furniture in his room would fit into the living room, basement and attic. In the course of carrying an arm load of empty glass bottles (mostly sparkling lemonade and birch beer), I tripped on a cardboard box. I fell hard. I tried to catch myself and to avoid breaking the bottles. I managed to hold onto all but 2 bottles (which didn’t break). In the process I hit my knee on the metal strip that separates the carpet from the laminate flooring. I immediately felt pain in my knee and shoulder. By the time I got home my left shoulder was throbbing, my neck was stiff and my back was having spasms in waves. The next morning I felt like I’d been run over by a truck – twice. With judicious use of water massage, massive doses of Ibuprofen, and comfortable shoes (slip on variety) I managed to make it into work. In my head I don’t feel any older than I did at 30 but my body is starting to feel some effects of age. I don’t bounce back as quickly as I used to and my bones are becoming a little brittle…

This is a Kyrielle which is a poem of 4 stanzas each consisting of 4 lines with 8 syllables. The last line of the first stanza becomes the refrain and is repeated as the last line in the subsequent stanzas. The stanzas are also written as rhyming couplets thus the rhyme scheme is: aaxX bbxX ccxX ddxX.