Seldom
Seldom now do I
darken old doorways,
a shadow of my
former shadowy
self, sidling along
side streets or
head down in
thoroughfares
that once I strode up.
*
My office door
resembled that one,
happy with obligation.
My successor
may well oblige
more with wise succour.
Teaching is
a commodity
utterly invisible.
As she may know
already entering
mid-career
wondering about
energies dispersed
in service.
Invisible ex-teacher,
I won’t knock.
She may be writing.
*
Hills I avoid unless
it’s a downward slope,
submitted to tentatively.
Steep I once did with pride
as if youth were virtue.
Overtaken on all sides
by youth I mutter:
your time is short.
Yet mine is shorter.
*
I seem without intending
to have turned
off the busy main road
into a no exit street.
None of us go out
by the way we came in.
Some plan their send-off
or have it planned for them.
Some outlive all
who might mourn for them.
It matters little.
What does matter?
*
Should we meet here
by chance, after a few words
you’d hear me say,
Well, I’d better
be heading back.
Back? Which way is that?
|