when hair falls off and eyes blur And
thighs forget(when clocks whisper
and night shouts)When minds
shrivel and hearts grow brittler every
Instant(when of a morning Memory stands,
with clumsily wilted fingers
emptying youth colour and what was
into a dirtied glass)Pills for Ills
(a recipe against Laughing Virginity Death)
then dearest the
way trees are made leaves
open Clouds take sun mountains
stand And oceans do Not sleep matters
nothing;then(then the only hands so to speak are
they always which creep budgingly over some
numbered face capable of a largest nonglance the
least unsmile
or whatever weeds feel and fish think of)
The poem basically saying that when humans get old they can eventually at some point look back upon their old memories of youth and accept them for having passed them by, while at the same time understand that it will soon be their time to go and that something much better awaits them after death.