Am Getting Old Now

I'm getting old now is a prose poem. It is quite vibrant and simple and presents the theme of cycle of life. It depicts the poet's acceptance of death and links with with his nostalgic memories of his mother. The first part of the poem symbolize his dream while second part signifies that he is close to death. He address death as a long lost friend whom he seeks to meet in the near future. Realizing that he has got less time to spend on earth he reminisce his past memories and dream a lot.

In his dream he recollects how much love and pride his mother had in him. The poem is very touching and it instills in us the pain we feel when we reminisce about good things long lost. A few Key Points: Meeting of different cultures: tourist comes from modern world, and thinks he can dispose of this irritating beggar. But when she speaks she casts a spell, and shows him who is really in control. Woman rooted in where she lives - identified with sky and hills, and draws power from them.

Things not what they seem: woman has more power than the poet suspects. Poem has a formal structure in triplets (three-line stanzas). Occasional half rhymes (“coin”/ “shrine”, “on”/ “skin”) and full rhyme to mark a pause: (“crone”/ “alone”). Lines are short but always with pattern of two stressed syllables, apart from in the final line, where the single stress brings the poem to a full stop. Most words monosyllables. Poem refers to old woman with third-person pronoun “she” and tourist with second-person pronoun, “you”.

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This makes poem like an account of real experience, putting reader in tourist's place. Coin which woman begs at the start of the poem, gives the ending its enduring image. Tourist's weakness is suggested in metaphor of “small change”, while “in her hand” indicates that woman has power over him. Her power also suggested by appearance - her eyes are “bullet holes”, dark spaces with nothing behind. “Cracks” (lines) in her face turn into cracks in sky, hills and temples, while the old woman remains invulnerable (“shatter-proof”). Crone” suggests the magical power of the old woman. CHURCH GOING Larkin starts his poem after making it sure that no ceremony was going on in the Church. It connotes that Larkin himself did not like ceremonies being performed in the Churches, perhaps due to people’s unconcerned attitude towards churches, otherwise he would not have said: “Once I’m sure here’s nothing going on”. When Larkin says “Another church”, in line number three, it denotes that he has visited all the churches and every church of the city is empty.

Perhaps, he has found some mental tranquility in the present church that is why he made his mind to stay in the Church for some time as it was his habit. There is a beautiful blend of similar and dissimilar objects in the poem. For example in stanza number four, line number 28 “after dark” and “dubious women” and in stanza number six, line number 48 “suburb” and “scrub” respectively. The ellipses, personification, humour, rhetorical questions, transferred epithets, synaesthetic imagery and irony combined make the poem a thing of beauty.

The last stanza brings about the final and absolute conclusion. “A serious house on serious earth it is” pays tribute to churches. Everything of this world may wipe out, even “superstition, like belief, must die” but the essential uniqueness of churches can never obsolete and out dated. This final stanza not only brings about the ultimate message but it also removes the ambiguity of the poem. In the poem the poet asked his readers “And what remains when disbelief has gone? ”. When everything will be annihilated, the church shall renovate humanity.

This is a poetic reaction to the failure of organized religions of all traditions, not merely of Christianity, as the word "church" might lead us to suppose. Traditionally the way of devotion has been pointed out as the method of spiritual pursuit for the ordinary man of this Age of Kali. And organized religions, even though they are severely afflicted with schisms and sectarian conflicts and even open fights, flourish; and pilgrimage itself has become a billion dollar business the world over. But this is a far cry from the real way of devotion.

Sri Aurobindo has expounded the nature of this path in his The Synthesis of Yoga. But he has conceded that in the religions of the masses, “…a most external form of ceremonial worship” , has a legitimate role to play. This is said in the light of the tantric gradation of spiritual pursuit which begins at the level of “…the herd, the animal or the physical being, the lowest stage of its discipline…” But larger and larger segments of this herd is getting estranged from their usual beaten tracks and wandering away from moral ways and seeking solace in drugs and debauchery.

This is a clear indication that mankind has come of age, that here after mankind has no use for organized religions of the traditional types. The clergy knows this; that is why it resorts to terrorism in desperation. A college professor's palm was chopped of by the agents of terror who speak for Islam. And the Christian management of his college had him dismissed. Do you know what he was accused of? He had used the name Muhammad in a question he had set for his students.

The question required the students to apply punctuation marks to a passage that reported a conversation between a character named Muhammad and God. And well/hell, the professor got his palm chopped off in the name of the Merciful. If this is religion then religion is doomed. church going is rather reality of life.. according to the present generation church going is just a tradition that they have been following since childhood, so its a part of their practise more than faith. Larkin is not interested in any ceremony or any sort of prayers and priests instead he visits the church when it is silent.

He does not have belief in church but cannot stop visiting it. However he still has that respect for church as he removes his clips of trousers as a mark of respect. Throughout the poem his thoughts reveal his concern for the present as well as future of and wonders what is their fate. It is worth noticing that even though poet is not a believer of these churches, he still continues with his traditions and not only him, in fact most of us do have the same mindset, be it a temple, mosque or church. Therefore the poem is applicable in present era.

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