The Elderly – At the Bottom of My Green Garden

WHEN YOU ARE OLD

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

and nodding by the fire, take down this book,

and slowly read, and dream of the soft look

your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

and loved your beauty with love false or true,

but one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

and loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled

and paced upon the mountains overhead

and hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

(W B Yeats 1892).

Alrighty, poetry aside which we will come back to, I don’t usually do this, but there’s always that exception for better or worse.

I am citing a post from Facebook I came across today in a group, ‘Professor Brian Cox Official’ – Though ‘official’ may or may not be true, official to whom?

It is from an FB group not a page, and let’s not kid ourselves, nothing guaranteed about the authenticity of a page, nor group or its content. Still it has more than 200,000 members vis-à-vis followers. So a touch more democratic, participative or inclusive, if you put a bracket around the infamous FB algorithms and brevity of your temporal splash, buried in sedimentary layers of voices never to be seen or heard again, like a fossil. Life hits most of us that way.

For those who know me, I am a lifetime fan of the universe in more ways than one, with an equally brief interest since childhood in Astronomy. Regretfully (in minor key, B flat minor) I wish I had pursued a career in Astrophysics, and yes Professor Brian Cox is an inspiring role model.

A recent live lecture I attended in Sydney with one of my son in laws, affirmed my commitment to that thought. This was live not virtual, I am a big fan of life, and imaginary is not to be conflated with digital reality. I am a big fan of imagination too as much as science and humanities. Alternate realities I am keeping an open mind – dreams or physics, I am reminded all our realities in life are alternate, conscious-self, unconscious or otherwise.

It’s a wonder we can all communicate at all… ah the some of many can’t, but we’re not going there today. I refuse to bend the pleasant spaces in my mind on a Sunday (and God it’s Monday in a flash already) – we rest, we stock up, take refuge in the collective, the realm of personhood and divinity of poetry, peace and quiet.

So briefly, to the first element, the ‘elderly’… oh and I remember when I was young, I never dreamt of being on the other side. I rarely had visions, was always plagued with dreams – for some, visions come later not the way or when we’re told.

Oddly the quote below I stem from, as much as it is a truism and the other deep flaw, it is AI generated, whole content, lock, stock and barrel.  But don’t be deterred, beyond its common face, it is most profound both in terms of physics, reality and philosophy, particularly in its context, the body content, and it resonates subjectively.

Consider yourself elderly or not it is all a matter of conception, relativity, imagination and fact.

If you are young and wise consider. For the rest of us you can please yourself and immerse yourself as we do in what we can only ponder with fair measure, that which is gone the moment we first lived it – the past.

And as we all know, the past was just a prelude to a new beginning, happens all the time – the cycle of life.

THE ELDERLY

All wept, as I think both ye now would,

if envy or age had not frozen your blood,

at the sorrow of my sweet pipings.

(From ‘Hymn of Pan’ by Percy Shelley, 1820)

Post from Facebook, 10 September 2026* (It’s AI content or generated, well worth a read, profound and illustrative of what we are about, the last generation of our kind, not merely elderly – respect):

‘We are often called “the elderly,” but that quiet label hides a truth most people rarely pause to consider: we are the last living witnesses of a world that no longer exists’.

Our generation (1946-2026) – I wonder how this conscious life is to be reflected, words generated  by or with the assistance of AI.

Are we original or fast to be an artefact of a barely unconscious existence, a future memory or history.

We are all reduced to a bundle of whirling memories and eventually history. A history which may no longer be written by the generations that follow, by humans, and certainly never lived.

But you will dream it if you wish to, as a relic floating through a foreign land, the past, through a digital reconstruction, an altered reality, your virtual crystal ball or avatar – the future just imagine, but not the human experience or life, we the departed had.

And we alas will be gone like, and yet unlike any who have gone before us.

This, our thesis of a million acts and stages here and gone. We can discuss if you are up to it, I’m sure to come back to this later on another trajectory, as I wander through.

A poem, a tease from 9 years ago before AI or our common present day access and what  the future now unfolds, for better or worse, two alternate realities or parallel universe, one garden. Let it be a green one.

If you want to understand me, here’s a start…

AT THE BOTTOM OF MY GREEN GARDEN

Was life less

fitbit candy crush and roses when

juicy apples came from the grocery store

with snakes and ladders squarely hung on trees?

I hear angels tinker

at the bottom of my orchard garden,

nimble humdrum sting of bees

but apples always will be apples,

clean and crunchy candid pardon sing

bite me, bite me,

go on bite me please

before I turn to soggy cider silly!

Was growing up less

fitbit candy crush and roses with

daily fresh cream milk in gold top bottles,

the morning milkman ballet yearning at your door?

I hear jangles jingle

at the bottom of my meadow garden,

mooing herd of cow for sure

but dairy always curd and dairy,

chewing cud and candid pardon tinkle

drink me, drink me,

go on drink me more

before I churn in whiffy cheese and chilli!

Was love less

fitbit candy crush and roses for those

fewer farmyard hens laying eggs in random clutches

when her dozy duchess rang for a dozen more?

I hear fickle squabble

at the bottom of my fair garden,

broody clucking off the floor

but poultry always will be poultry,

cockerel crow and cackling pardon heckle

peck me, peck me,

go on peck me sore

before I hatch on beaten eggs and lily!

Was growing old less

fitbit candy crush and roses while

wild horses proudly rode these open plains

and mountain castles whistled through your veins.

I hear thudding hooves

at the bottom of my winter garden,

flaring nostrils breathless reins

but horses always run with horses,

neighing, snorting, whining pardon canter

ride on, ride on

these knuckled blains

before I stomp on buckled knee and jelly!

Were dreams less

fitbit candy crush and roses where

wary woodlark warble off a window ledge

and scent of foxglove, bluebell, myrtle compost hedge?

I hear dragonfly drones

at the bottom of my spring garden,

bloated marrow, mushroom, sage

but wings of feather always wings of feather,

cheeky cherry chirping pardon chant,

catch me, catch me,

go on catch me cage

before I float on fly floss or dilly-dally!

Is paradise less

fitbit candy crush and roses?

What mighty oaks swung among these far-flung lands

which mammoth tusks and ivy folly claim!

I hear doted faeries

at the bottom of my green garden,

swollen gourds on bellies tame

but acorns always cast with acorns,

bitter sweet and candid pardon sworn

take hold, take hold,

wine and berries blame

as I lay down in woodland leprechaun and holly!

At the bottom of my green garden go where

fitbit candy crush and roses

the grey faun graze on stoned lavender

and thorny brambles grow.

(Barddylbach 2017)

On AllPoetry

Talking poem on Soundcloud

‘WARNING’ (THE PLAYFUL MANIFESTO)

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple

with a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.

And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves

and satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.

I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired

and gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells

and run my stick along the public railings

and make up for the sobriety of my youth.

I shall go out in my slippers in the rain

and pick flowers in other people’s gardens

and learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat

and eat three pounds of onions in a corner

or only bread and pickle for a week

and hoard pens and pencils and beer mats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry

and pay our rent and not swear in the street

and set a good example for the children.

We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practise a little now?

So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised

when suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

(Jenny Joseph 1961)

AGING

When you see me sitting quietly,

like a sack left on the shelf,

don’t think I need your chattering.

I’m listening to myself.

Hold! Stop! Don’t pity me!

Hold! Stop! Your sympathy!

Understanding if you got it,

otherwise I’ll do without it!

When my bones are stiff and aching,

and my feet won’t climb the stair,

I will only ask your favor:

Don’t bring me no rocking chair.

When you see me walking, stumbling,

don’t study and start to cogitate.

’Cause if I’m fumbling, crying, laughing,

I’m merely celebrating the date.

I’m the same person I was back then,

a little less hair, a little less chin,

a lot less lungs and much less wind,

but ain’t I lucky we can still be friends.

(Maya Angelou 1987)

‘A thought for pensioners and grandparents’ to politicians, corporations, shopping malls, Coles, Woollies, NSW Health and Police, mainstream media, billionaires and scammers out there:

• Who makes the biggest contribution to society for free and expects nothing in return?
• Who continues to make the world go round after a life time of working for others and a living
• Who would be in the land of the living without them?

Faces hidden in the stars and their grandchildren…

‘You will always be the meaning of the run, the dauntless heights of longing’ –

But that’s another poem.

REFERENCES

When you are old – W B Yeats 1892

Hymn of Pan  – Percy Shelley 1820

‘We are often called the ‘elderly’ – Facebook Group: Professor Brian Cox Official, posted 10 September 2026

At the Bottom of My Green Garden – Barddylbach (2017), In: ‘Seasonal Perspective: A Poetry Anthology’, Kevin Watt (ed) 2018

‘Warning’ (The Playful Manifesto) – Jenny Jospeh (1961), In: The Listener Magazine, BBC 1962

Aging – ‘Shaker Why Don’t You Sing?’ Maya Angelou 1987

Metamodernism: A Brief Introduction – Luke Turner, 12 January 2015

What is Metamodernism? Editorial, 15 July 2010

* If this link one day disappears, as they do, let me know – I have kept a full copy of the text (blog)

Related article by same author – Three Poems, Irony and Apology to Elephants