Age and BeautyIn the poem "Next Day" by Randall Jarrell, the speaker is a lady who is very troubled by her increasing age. I think it's interesting that this was written in 1965 because that's the same year the author died. This raises the question of whether the poem was speaking about his own feelings or whether it was speaking about another person. Perhaps he knew that his life was soon coming to an end and before he died, he wanted to convey his thoughts to others. The title suggests that the speaker is writing about the implications of the days ahead and perhaps learning to cope with them. The beginning of the poem lets the reader know that the old lady is upset about her current lifestyle and where she thinks it will lead her. . She longs for the days when she was young and beautiful and everyone looked at her and wanted her. When the boy brings her groceries to her car, she wanted him to see her that way, but she knows her physical appearance has changed to the point where she no longer receives those same longing looks. I get the sense that she feels like she doesn't fit into the current decade and that she only knows better what happened in her earlier years. When she was younger, people would turn their heads and notice her. But now she's angry at her lack of influence in the world. The phrase "looking at my life, I only fear that it will change, as I change", means that she fears that her life will become even worse than it already is. She spends her time alone thinking about all this and trying to accept the future. She is afraid of his old face and hates what he has become. The youth of her past has completely abandoned her and she is now forced to face the present. I think it's obvious that she's afraid of dying because when she went to the funeral and saw her friend's face, she imagined herself lying there in the coffin. The lady in this poem is confused about her life. She realizes she doesn't have many years left.