a man for all seasons: 1913

AFTER READING TU FU,
I GO OUTSIDE TO THE DWARF ORCHARD

East of me, west of me, full summer.

How deeper than elsewhere the dusk is in your own yard.

Birds fly back and forth across the lawn
looking for home
As night drifts up like a little boat.

Day after day, I become of less use to myself.

Like this mockingbird,
I flit from one thing to the next.

What do I have to look forward to at fifty-four?

Tomorrow is dark.

Day-after-tomorrow is darker still.

The sky dogs are whimpering.

Fireflies are dragging the hush of evening
up from the damp grass.

Into the world's tumult, into the chaos of every day,
Go quietly, quietly.

-- Charles Wright

From Chickamauga, published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
Copyright © 1995 by Charles Wright. All rights reserved.

I'm 62
Another day ignorant.
Here comes the sun anyway.
So beautiful I could just pee my pants.
Frost wore diapers after 70
his daughter told his biographer
he'd get so excited.
It doesn't get easier.
I just filleted a yellow perch
I caught an hour ago in the bay.
Its lone gut unfolded
like origami,
one sandshrimp after another.
You see what I mean?
I live alone to spare myself,
another, the intensity of feelings
even a little bird brings on
eating the bread crumbs
I put out the night before.

-- Tom Crawford
Orion Magazine