After dinner, in his dotage,
Horace plays with the candle flame,
watching it wave and flicker,
poking it with the snuffer,
nudging it 
to see how faint 
it will glow 
without going out.

Old age was the terror
most dreaded by the Romantics,
who preferred death
to its indignities, infirmities,
uncertainties.

They thought it better 
to blaze out like Acer:
aged 27, 
handsome and tattooed
with waist-length blond hair,
he OD’ed one July night
in a hotel room made over
to one of his “hamster nests”
lined with shredded phone books
where he liked to party.
                        

Too often we found ourselves
Rehearsing the same frustrating scene
Dead-ended in recrimination.

The identical weed sprouted everywhere.
Thousands of times I plucked it out
Easily its shallow roots let go of the earth

And the soothing sound of the stream
Washed over and over my mind
Dissolving the hurt.

Love is a mirror reflecting unlikeness—
What it is we need that we don’t have,
What we have that we can give.

To receive the gifts which come to us 
Out of love, we must learn
What we once knew, and then forgot.

	*	*	*

While my body deepened in the asana,
My mind floated out of the stifling room
And settled on the woman in the pink suit

Coming up Broadway as evening was falling.
I felt the cool breeze in my hair as if she were I, 
And we two were flowers carried through the dusk.

Cast your trouble off! Let it go!
Give your full attention to the world.
Know who you are. Question what you know.
Let your gifts not lie unused lest they fail you. 

Time is a breath of air.
Time is the fire within you.
Time is the accepting earth.
Time is water flowing ever on.

  	*	*	*

As I grow old, I am ever more certain 
Of uncertainty. 
My weakness has shattered me,
The fragments scattered on the ground,
Sparkling and fading.

Only these words are left.
My song. My prayer. My protest.
My plea and apology.

Shadows move faster than light
Because they have no mass,
They don’t exist, yet can be measured.

The world is a terrible place.
There’s no getting out alive,
Said my friend from his hospital bed,
Elation disguising his dread—
Or the other way round.
                        

Frederick’s as careless of his body
as if he were one of the fish
he catches in the Hampton Bays.
He’s fractured his bones a dozen times;
each mending has left him 
more fragile than before.

He fell off his truck last spring
and broke his right arm in three places.
After two operations, it’s still not right.

The beard he’s grown can’t hide
the look of pain in his eyes,
the fear that he can’t keep up. 
How can a loner like him
do anything else?

“I have the best of both worlds—
half the time at sea 
away from it all, 
the other half selling my catch
at markets like this.
It’s a life of adventure 
and freedom.”

He winces, his hand 
bent like a claw
scooping up a piece of fish
to weigh it for a customer.