The poem
Stirs its ashes and embers, its burnt sticks
An eye powdered over, half melted and solid again Ponders Ideas that collapse At the first touch of attention
The light at the window, so square and so same So full-strong as ever, the window frame A scaffold in space, for eyes to lean on
Supporting the body, shaped to its old work Making small movements in gray air Numbed from the blurred accident Of having lived, the fatal, real injury Under the amnesia
Something tries to save itself-searches For defenses-but words evade Like flies with their own notions
Old age slowly gets dressed Heavily dosed with death's night Sits on the bed's edge
Pulls its pieces together Loosely tucks in its shirt
Hughes does not offer a pretty picture of the aging process--or any false hope. The last three stanzas are hard-hitting. At the same rate, he doesn't really express a fear of aging. He stays focused on the changes that aging enforces.
i think its a terrific poem, and has great depth and imagery :)
old age
the poem builds up the same image of old age in mind as of Shakespearean old age in his poem All the World a Stage. Ted Hughes has personified old age and it seems it is a force that dominates humans. associating it with death in the last lines arises terrifying feeling.