Ted Hughes' 'Old Age Gets Up'

I would like to quote here a poem by Ted Hughes.

Old Age Gets Up

Stirs its ashes and embers, its burnt sticks

An eye powdered over, half melted and solid again
Ponders
Ideas that collapse
At the first touch of attention

The light at the window, so square and so same
So full-strong as ever, the window frame
A scaffold in space, for eyes to lean on

Supporting the body, shaped to its old work
Making small movements in gray air
Numbed from the blurred accident
Of having lived, the fatal, real injury
Under the amnesia

Something tries to save itself-searches
For defenses-but words evade
Like flies with their own notions

Old age slowly gets dressed
Heavily dosed with death's night
Sits on the bed's edge

Pulls its pieces together
Loosely tucks in its shirt

Old is such a stage of life when you have satisfaction of having lived a full life but at the same time prospect of growing old is frightening. This is because of the state of loneliness associated with old age and the unconcerned look in the eyes of others towards the old people. Ogden Nash in his poem 'Old Men' writes:

People expect old men to die,
They do not really mourn old men.
Old men are different. People look
At them with eyes that wonder when…
People watch with unshocked eyes;
But the old men know when an old man dies.

In the present poem of Ted Hughes, which we are to discuss, the poet begins by an image of starting again, of starting afresh, of getting up: "stirs its ashes and embers". He talks of the forgetfulness(amnesia) associated with old age. But still something, that is, life, the urge to live tries to save itself; and finally it "pulls its pieces together". Here the word 'pieces' is significant because we are talking of the old age when a person has only tidbits to gather from his experiences of life. A vivid memory evades him. Even, as Hughes writes, words don't come to your defence. "The window frame/ A scaffold in space, for eyes to lean on/ Supporting the body..." probably hints at the restricted and shrunken world in which an old man lives. He has only a window to lean on, the only outlet to the outer world. 'The light at the window' finally inspires him to get up and get dressed, ready to face the world again.

The interpretation of poetry is such a field that I supppose the meaning will vary from person to person. The above interpretation is purely what came to my mind after reading it. Let all of us strive to find more meanings.