The surges of a joy
are all that joy entails:
a sailing out from life
with reefed and rounded sails
from someplace never safe,
whether home or Troy.
 
Remember to come home
to where shared action is,
where interests still accrue,
the games of hers and his—
but leave a year or two
to build another Rome.
                        

He might as well have built a wall around himself,
refusing, as he does, to use his hearing aid.
His ancient model, a leech-like thing, lies on the shelf
above his head. “Here, plug the damn thing in,” I’ve said
 
as often as he’s mumbled something back to me.
I ask him what he said, before he’s gone again,
but something like a childish pout is his reply:
“At my age understanding’s hardly worth the pain!”
 
All he said, of course, was how it hurt his ear,
the old complaints I’d be unlikely to pursue.
He said it loud enough for buried folk to hear,
so I sat quietly and settled on the view.