Well seasoned
By Brandon Astor Jones
"A woman is a woman until the day she dies ..." — Moms Mabley
For those who do not know, the late Moms Mabley was a consummate humorist and comedian. Her risque antics and one-liners will live forever. The woman could make a rock laugh! There is more to her quote above, but I will save it for later.
One of the things that made Moms' humour so easy on the senses was her endless awe and excitement about being a woman. She took pride in both herself and in her ability to exhaust the libidinal drives of young men by the score. She was good at being a woman perhaps because she had so many years of experience at it. She was well into the twilight of her years when she died, but she refused to be socially or emotionally crippled by a few lines, sags and wrinkles.
Please do not misunderstand me. I think young women are lovely too. Youth and beauty are very often guaranteed at birth. Almost anybody can have them, but growing older (and old) requires a certain kind of savvy and finesse in order to obtain, let alone master, both age and beauty.
Let me get back to the rest of Moms' quote, which states, "... but a man's a man only as long as he can". As a man who still can — that is, if the prison administrators would let me — I thought it fitting to compose and share the following poem with, and for, those magnificent women everywhere who are not in their 20s.
Time's footsteps
I delight in the growing maturity
of a woman who carries
Time's many weathered faces, her head
full of experience instead of
Wide open spaces.
Still there intellectually, long after
the passion and perspiration
of a heated coupling dissipates,
She is by no means limited to mere eroticism
less than skilfully cloaked in
youthful gibberish and frilly satin laces.
There is no need to forgive her those
distinctive lines of beauty, nor the wrinkles that sag here and there
For each one is a unique and living trophy
that shows a life vigorously lived in
character, strength and courage despite a world's despair.
Engaging, intriguing, invigorating and stimulating
feats — she can perform by the score ...
Were I free to roam the luxurious
fields and meadows of such seasoned femininity,
grass would not grow in the lane leading to her door.
[The writer is a prisoner on death row in the United States. He is happy to receive letters commenting on his columns. He can be written to at: Brandon Astor Jones, EF-122216, G2-51, GD&CC, PO Box 3877, Jackson, GA 30233, USA.]