“Warning” by Jenny Joseph

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple,
With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves,
And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.

I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired,
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells,
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.

I shall go out in my slippers in the rain,
And pick flowers in other people’s gardens,
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat,
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go,
Or only bread and pickle for a week,
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry,
And pay our rent and not swear in the street,
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised,
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.



When PG read this, he was reminded of his favorite college professor, a woman who was beyond a certain age. Her name was Charlotte Lee. She loved the poet, Theodore Roethke, and had written several academic papers about his work, including one of his best-known poems, “ Old Lady’s Winter Words .”



“Miss Lee,” not “Doctor Lee,” called PG into her office after class in late spring of his senior year. She asked him what he was going to do after he graduated. He meandered a bit about this and that before she stopped him.



“You need to get a job,” Miss Lee said sternly. She wrote down the address of the student placement office and ordered him to leave her office and immediately march down to student placement and tell them he needed a job.



Of course, PG did as Miss Lee had ordered. He had a job offer the day after his first interview, and quickly discovered he liked working more than he had liked most of his college classes (Miss Lee’s excluded) and off he went.