A poet turns 80: Full of life in a Haiku Garden | Katya Taylor

I have been contemplating writing about “becoming truly old” (which at 80, I think one can say one is) for quite some while, trying to come up with an angle that would allow me to excavate the meaning for myself, as well as share it with you.

Last night I had an experience that felt both surreal and commonplace – the lines of a poem registering in my consciousness, but I was too sleepy to get up and scrawl them down. The lines that echoed over and over were:

“I want to tell/but there’s no telling/there’s only light and shadow…”

When I finally roused myself to record them, the next line came immediately:

“and the lonely moon rising or setting/I don’t know which.”

OK, so this was a melancholy poem.  I went back, shivering, to nestle against my husband, and I murmured to him “You’re emanating warmth like a true love does…” and as I heard myself say that, I knew that would be the next line, providing a sense of hope perhaps to the unsettled dreamer.

Finally, morning came, and I wrote the rest:

“And I settle in/to a place unhaunted/where the pen can find/the words to sing.”

As I pasted the poem into my journal, I realized that finding the words to sing is the work (and joy) of the poet, and sometimes the Muse feels something so strongly she doesn’t stop cue-ing the poet until she is (I am) compelled to act.

Right after my birthday, in January, I wrote the following Haiku, in an attempt to fathom the mystery of my mortality.

I’m so full of life

and yet there is room for more

paradox of age

It occurred to me that this is true for all of us.  We are full of our life experiences, the wonderful and the difficult, full of the history of the decades we’ve lived as well, full whether we are 20 or 40 or 60 or 80 or 100, but as long as we breathe, if we are still alive, there is room for more life, more experiences, more sensations, more love, and in my case, more poems.

But the poet doesn’t live in a rarified world.  She is connected to the natural world, to animals and people, she is a contributing member of society. For 40 years I have offered  creative arts and healing workshops to people from all walks of life, but when the COVID shutdown happened, I stopped.

When restrictions eased, I realized I was content with a simpler life, here at my homestead, which I affectionately call Haiku Garden. I decided to retire from teaching, but a writer never retires!

I continue to meet one on one with writing friends in my screened in back porch, and have been working seriously to bring old Manuscripts into book form that had been idling for years. I also am experiencing the delight of being, at my ripe age, a grandmother.

I may be nimble – in mind and body – but age has its own agenda. Days before my birthday, I finally consented to have cataract surgery, after putting it off for years.  When I finally knew I had to, I told myself, Katya, you will see with new eyes, you will have new vision, and for some reason that comforted me.

I remembered the Haiku master Basho saying one should always see the world with fresh eyes, with “beginner’s eyes,” never to be jaded to the clouds or stars or flowers or even the ups and downs of being human.

My mother, a wise and equanimous woman, often reminded me: “Age is mind over matter, if you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” She died when a heart operation went awry. She was 83.

She had led a full rich life and while losing her was devastating, I also knew she would tell me not to mourn, but to celebrate my own existence and carry on. She was only three years older than I am now.  If I were to pass from this earth then too, I believe my last thought would be this poem, which came to me shortly after my 80th birthday:

To be old

Is a gift

Greater than

Gold

And what does that mean, exactly?  It means I’m still here, still typing words on a keyboard, still receiving poems in the middle of the night, still gardening, still dancing, still being a wife/mother/grandmother/friend/writer/cat-lover/coffee drinking woman, who intends to spread a message of hope where there is suffering, and also the wonder of seeing with fresh eyes.

But, can a poet ever really die?  Is she not by the nature of her words ageless and immortal?  Something to ponder.

Katya Sabaroff Taylor, author of "My Haiku Life" and "Prison Wisdom,"  believes we all have stories and poems inside of us waiting for expression. Email her at [email protected].

I want to tell

but there’s no telling

there is only

light and shadow

and the lonely moon

rising or setting

I don’t know which

but you’re emanating warmth

like a true love does

and I settle in

to a place unhaunted

where the pen can find

the words to sing

- Katya Sabaroff Taylor

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: A poet turns 80: Full of life in a Haiku Garden