When You Age Poem by gershon hepner

When you age, you hear in quite a different way
the music’s harmonies and overtones,
but when it doesn’t stimulate your bones
to tingle, blame yourself, not how the people play.

Aging and dying are themes that are just as relevant today as in the Dark Ages. In his youth, Beowulf saves the Danes from the monster Grendel and, later, from Grendel's vengeful, bog-dwelling mother before returning home in triumph to become king of the land of the Geats (what is now southern Sweden) . Then, as he is approaching old age, he must fight a terrifying wyrm, or dragon, to save his people, knowing that he probably won't return from the battle. Seamus Heaney says, about his new translation of “Beowulf”: 'I was particularly drawn to the last third of the poem, when the old king encounters the dragon. There is a sense of a destined fatal encounter, ' Mr. Heaney explains. 'Maybe it's because I'm 60 - age can make you hear the music differently.'
This was the poem’s Vorlage:
Age makes you hear the music in a different way,
the harmonies and overtones,
but when it doesn’t cause your bones
to tingle, blame yourself not how the people play.

2/23/00,5/25/09