My mom, Raynette Forister Eitel, passed away in September of 2022, drifting away into dementia. It was tragic to watch this woman who loved words, who was a poet, fade away into wordlessness after a lifetime of crafting poetry.
To honor her, I’m sharing some of her poems.
To read more of her poems, keep coming back here.
I Have Grown Old
by Raynette Eitel, 1999
I have grown old, my love.
Words I stored like sliced apples
To dry on the roof
Are waiting to be
Folded into a sweet autumn pie
Or stirred into a smooth sauce
Sweetened with the savor of my life.
I have grown old, my love.
My arthritic fingers write slowly
Keeping up with wrinkled thoughts
From the cloth of a lifetime.
Stories I heard as a child,
Songs sung as I fought sleep,
Sayings that salted my grandmother’s speech,
Laughter, tears, and bitter anger
Simmered through the years into the syrup of my days.
My poems will be stirred until the
Essence is exactly right,
I will give you the first taste.
Writing Rhetorically 