Presenting the first-place winner of the Learning to Cope Prize!

Rondeau Redoublé: Final Stage

I pray I never do those sorts of things

that made me once deride and dread old age —

the trivial and pointless ramblings

that signal we’ve come to the final stage.

The telltale signs and acts by which we gauge

decline: saving scraps of paper, bits of strings,

dozing off halfway down each page.

I pray I never do those sorts of things.

I pray that I can curb my mutterings

and sotto voce scolds, restrain my rage

at every new contraption progress brings,

that made me once deride and dread old age,

weather the trials and traumas that presage

the end: the mind’s demise, the wanderings,

the fears no cheerful banter can assuage,

the trivial and pointless ramblings

of friends, their lapses and imaginings.

I pray to find the wit and will to wage

defense against outrageous fortune’s slings

that signal I’ve come to the final stage.

Though each of us may play both fool and sage,

Though darkness may be gathering in the wings,

This is no time to rest, to disengage,

no time to give up on our hungerings.

I pray I never do.

--Toni Clark

Antonia (Toni) Clark is a medical writer, editor, poet, and teacher, and she co-administers an online poetry forum, The Waters. She is the author of a chapbook, Smoke and Mirrors, and a full-length poetry collection, Chameleon Moon. Her poems and short stories have appeared in numerous print and online journals, including Anderbo, The Cortland Review, Eclectica, The Missouri Review, The Pedestal Magazine, Rattle, and Softblow. Toni lives in Vermont, loves French picnics, and plays French café music on a sparkly purple accordion.