Menopause: A Return to Youth
…believe it!
Here is a poem (in pantoum format) I wrote about menopause. I was fortunate, as a teenager, to read a book my grandmother owned: The Changing Years, by Madeline Gray (1951). I have lived my life believing that menopause promised a return to youth. Finally, for me, that promise was fulfilled. I am enjoying the cake of my return to youth, and eating it, too. May your youth return to you, dear readers. Beneath the poem is a quote from Madeline Gray’s book.
Pause and Return, A Pant(y)oum
female biology comes in fields and folds
trebles and clefs, stanzas that build
and purge in purring cycles of drum rolls and cravings
suns and moons turn to calendar squares
trebles and clefs, stanzas that build
uncounted from birth until counting at years 12. or 13. or 14.
suns and moons turn to calendar squares
that turn to pages and turn and turn into years and years
of fertility’s march or match and maternity or mistake and misery
until the years have changed to the changing years
and her body does le retour d’age, to stasis, to status, of girl
because of the natural switch
until the years have changed to the changing years
and the flow of hormones trickles to tricks
because of the natural switch
female biology comes in fields, and folds
And most of the terror comes from that phrase I hate even to go on mentioning — ‘The change of life.’ The Germans don’t use that phrase. They use a kinder one: Die Wecheljahrë, or, ‘The changing years.’ The French don’t use it. They use an even kinder one: Le retour d’age, or, ‘The return to the age.’ They imply by this a return to the age of youth before the time of fertility. A return to some of the carefree days.
~ Madeline Gray, The Changing Years: The Menopause Without Fear (1951)
