Plahm adopts the voice of the self-aware elder, balancing authority with vulnerability in a way that avoids the twin traps of sentimentality and bitterness. The poem opens with an anaphoric cascade of “Strength”—will, knowledge, experience, moral clarity—then immediately deflates its own grandeur with “At least, us old farts dare to hope.” This tonal oscillation between earned wisdom and disarming self-deprecation runs throughout, giving the poem its distinctive warmth. The structural journey moves through challenge and failure, success and fantasy, armor-building and the persistence of learning, arriving at the crucial turn: “Now, we can offer guidance / Gentle and honest / Heartfelt and given with love.” The image of “wrinkled hands and crepey skin” alongside “Memories of being young / With tears in our eyes” achieves genuine poignancy—the body ages but the emotional memory stays vivid. The confession of “my own biases, ignorance and selfish stupidity” is startlingly honest, refusing the moral high ground that elder wisdom poems often claim. The closing pivot—from self to grandchildren, from “us” to “you”—delivers the final line with devastating simplicity: “You are loved.”

A deeply personal poem that earns its emotional payoff through honesty rather than polish. The “old farts” self-identification is a masterstroke of tone—it simultaneously claims and undercuts authority, making the speaker someone you want to listen to rather than resist. The structural progression from strength to failure to armor to offering mirrors the arc of a life lived with open eyes, and the penultimate stanza’s admission of bias and stupidity gives the closing declaration of love its credibility. The poem’s greatest strength is its refusal to moralize; it offers wisdom while acknowledging that wisdom is imperfect. The image of guidance given “with wrinkled hands and crepey skin” is both tender and unflinching. Where the poem occasionally falters is in its middle stanzas, which catalog experiences somewhat generically—”Our moments of fantasy / Come to life” could benefit from a specific memory. But the final line lands with the force of something long withheld and finally spoken. A poem that proves vulnerability is the ultimate form of strength.