Aging Gratefully

September 24, 2026 admin

By Mary Beth Roach

Poet Gloria Heffernan just published her fourth book.

We’ve all heard the phrase “aging gracefully.”

Local poet Gloria Heffernan has borrowed that phrase for the title of one of the pieces in her latest book of poetry, but the poem — as well as the whole collection — suggests that perhaps the goal is to age gratefully and that gratitude is the “very essence of grace.”

Released this past May, “Moments of Color and Cloud” is her fourth book, filled with pieces that are sure to touch readers with their relevance.

Heffernan said the work actually started with a poem, “Moments of Color and Cloud,” in honor of her friend, Wendy Harris, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at the age of 75. Harris had also been a distinguished artist known for her pastels and one of her works is the cover of the book.

“I wrote the poem to offer her some words of encouragement and hope as she faced her diagnosis,” she said. “I didn’t know that this poem would be the threshold into the complex landscape of aging.”

A second poem soon after was dedicated to another friend battling cognitive decline.

Through these writing experiences, she said she began to notice how many of her poems dealt with her own aging process and those of her friends and how much of her writing was a reflection of her life.

“I think my goal in the book is to really look at the complexity of aging,” she said. “It’s a complex journey and that’s what I wanted this collection to reflect.”

However, it was important to her that levity be included and among the 70 poems that make up the collection, there are several that will conjure up memories and smiles for the readers.

Take, for example, “Elegy for My Black Suede Pumps,” “Flirtations,” in which a former home economics teacher likened hemming a dish towel to the art of flirting (many women in their 60s can recall their home ec classes; and “Thirty Minutes a Day,” filled with flashbacks to a long-deceased gym teacher, who Heffernan wrote, was “buried no doubt with her starter’s whistle threaded between her fingers like a rosary.”

There are also poems about the everyday challenges of aging, such as the chronic aches and pains; the frustrating need to recall or change passwords; and insomnia.

While she said she has been writing poetry for much of her 67 years, it wasn’t until the age of 55, while working at Le Moyne College, that she began to really focus on it. She asked Linda Pennisi, a creative writing teacher there, if she could sit in on one of her poetry workshops.

While she had had individual poems and chapbooks, which are short poetry books, published over the years and some for which she received various honors, it wasn’t until she completed the Le Moyne class that she began publishing full-length books.

“It’s not an exaggeration to say that that class changed my life,” Heffernan said.

She said she was a bit terrified to be in a class with 20-year-olds, but found that, as she said, the experience “gave [her] the confidence to really pursue writing in a serious way.”

“She [Pennisi] just reminded me to take a deep breath and listen to my own voice, which was very good advice,” she added.

After taking the course, she recalled thinking, “’I’m 55. I’ve been saying ‘someday’ for a very long time and that day is today.’”

Since then, the Syracuse resident published several books: “Fused,” “What The Gratitude List Said To The Bucket List:” and “Peregrinatio: Poems for Antarctica.” The Latin term means sacred voyage and she was so taken with the magnificence of the land following a 2019 tour with her husband, Jim, she said that “I have to say thank you. I have to give something back to it and that collection became my avenue to that.” Other titles include “Exploring Poetry of Presence:” and “Some of Our Parts.”

Heffernan also helps others express their words, conducting creative writing workshops at the Fayetteville Senior Center and teaching at the Downtown Writers Center. She loves the sense of community that comes from poetry workshops.

She is hopeful that her teaching method promotes encouragement among her students, instead of instructing them on the elements that make a great poem, she said she tells them to continue writing and “it’ll get better each time.” And she encourages them to be good readers, emphasizing that helps build language.

As for future projects, Heffernan has been co-editing a collection of poems with one of her literary heroes, Phyllis Cole-Dai, titled “Now I Chant Old Age. Poems of Mindful Eldering,” adapting a line from Walt Whitman.

Heffernan’s and Cole-Dai’s book will feature 100 poems. Most of them, Hefferson said, were written by people older than 60. She anticipates that the book will be out in a little more than a year.

Of the experience in preparing this collection, Hefferson said, “What we were finding was that there is a world of difference between getting old and growing older. Growing older is a choice. It’s a gift. It’s a blessing, and it’s something not to be taken for granted.”

Aging Gracefully

By Gloria Heffernan

When I think of aging gracefully

I visualize Katharine Hepburn,

shoulders erect, voice strong despite the tremor,

sweeping into a room on a wave of elegance.

I think of Audrey Hepburn who

never stopped carrying herself like a ballerina,

who never lost her radiant smile,

whether entering a ballroom or a mud hut.

I don’t think of stray hairs sprouting from chins,

I don’t think of cheeks descending into jowls,

I don’t think of lips etched with spider webs,

of lines that pinch into a perpetual pucker.

I wasn’t particularly graceful at twenty and

glamour is a language I never learned to speak.

So I don’t know why I expect to carry myself

like Kate or Audrey now in my sixties.

Perhaps I have been laboring all these years

under a simple but devastating type.

Perhaps the goal, the prize, is to age

G r a t e f u l l y.

Grateful for each day, each breath,

Each beloved face I encounter,

Each tender work uttered or received.

Perhaps it is simple gratitude

that underscores all those other qualities.

Perhaps gratitude

is the very essence of grace.