Poet at Forty

Through an oaken door
Down a corridor
I marvel at the children’s play
animated and cruel.

The poet too observes with his pale, innocent eye.

I come to a noisy hall and open the second door
To a spacious room
Full of Summer light
pine desk in disarray
With lined pages
And crumpled sheets scratched in choppy verse
the poet dejected and howling in the corner of my eye.

The third door arrives after strange halls and hidden mazes
With guides in a vast archive of
Manuscripts living and dead,
A poet stands silently filing papers
Like a man who polishes stones
Editing these Collected works
Neither noticing my coming or my going…

Banquets and dissolution follow
Forgetfulness, lust and bitter dejection;
At last I come to the fourth door
Crack open to find an accomplished poet of some reknown
And swell to hear his voice:

“I stand in wonder before little things---
Breezes in the late evening branches
Bouquets for the memory
From sundrenched vaults of yellow---
Dreams that Summer’s heavy arm plows under.

I toss scraps of paper to the ditch
With breach of regulation, well considered answer,
With definition, and vow
“Wonder before little things---
Ash and burning paper
Dissolving minute traces of Spring
Coiling near the park bench
Pastel ribbons flitter and flow away
On November’s winding, muddy water.”

His word trails along the luminous orchard
To filter Autumn’s cider
Into a glass of Wonder.
Spilling,
The deep green liquid
Holds fast to cool frosted soil
The sun paints the blue
With cloudy white brushes.

No longer swayed in storming majesties,
The poet at forty is captive
To ribbons, twigs,
Triune clover sustaining
Inspiration’s pool
echoing tales
Of valiant days into richer speech.