The Crone Can’t Spell Anymore

As a linguist and English teacher,
and even before, as a learner,
I never had problems spelling
or remembering the meaning
of…things.

Entering my seventieth year,
signs of ageing have appeared.
I have begun to trip and stumble,
words no longer tumble
from my fingers.

My handwriting’s scribble,
as if a dyslexic spider resides in my pen.
What I type isn’t what I see on screen–
letters are  issing, the meaning’s amiss,
and there are too many

spaces between words.
I can’t even type hte–
my writing’s going to the birds.
The magic isn’t working so well,
now I’m losing the power to swell spell.

And what does dislocated dyslexia mean again?

Kim M. Russell, 10th April 2025

Close-up of the face of the Cumaean Sybil,
painted in the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo

On NaPoWriMo 2025 Day 10, the featured resource is a virtual visit to the Sistine Chapel, where my husband and I spent a day in awe.

The optional daily prompt looks at sound from a different angle to yesterday’s challenge, with an example poem by Mark Bibbins, ‘At the End of the Endless Decade’, which has less eeriness and more wordplay. Our challenge is to write a poem that, like Bibbins’, uses alliteration and punning. We should try to work in references to at least one word we have trouble spelling and one that we’ve never quite been able to perfectly remember the meaning of. Tricky.

Also linked up to Lisa’s ‘power’ prompt for Tuesday Poetics at the dVerse Poets Pub.

38 thoughts on “The Crone Can’t Spell Anymore”

  4. You are no crone, at least as that word’s been misused, but oh, I know what you mean! At our age, our sense of humor must outpace all else, I think, and I appreciate this in your wonderful poem.

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  6. I understand your frustration.

    That’s why we have spell checkers and Grammarly.

    I also blame my new laptop. The keys are farther apart and have a different touch.

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  11. This made me laugh Kim – I think I’ll be ok as my spelling was never my strong point, I remember my English A Level teacher asking me once about an essy ‘What word were you going to use here..?’ I can’t recall what word it was now, but she was right, I had chosen another as I couldn’t spell the one I wanted. She wisely told me never. do that, always go with the flow. Thank god for spellcheck that’s what I say 😃

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  19. It appears you have many dVerse contemporaries experiencing similar manifestations of aging (including myself). All I can say is well expressed and just keep on doing as much as you can. That is my plan anyway!

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