Temperateness
If, at so late a date in a long life, I still,
as I claim, rejoice at every sight of new moon,
of sunset, every dawn not slept through,
surely also, surely I have as well
room still to move, meet, embrace
whatever weather descends on me
or blows in from mountain or sea -
humid, hot, ‘in pajamas for the heat’;
or cold, wet, in my stout coat and brimmed hat.
New moons wax to gradual fulness,
whenever met rejoiced-in, as tonight.
Thanks to what? my diet? my lucky genes?
my steady parents who sent me forth
placid, sanguine, seldom downcast?
My sister who sheltered all my slow growth
from any threat? All these indeed.
To steer clear of the fatal tropics
and anywhere intemperate
was a lesson well learned, sweating,
fainting, in my timid youth.
Fortune favoured me and my peers
in those places, under-populated,
where we found ourselves. English-speaking;
liking learning, though hardly well-schooled;
writing, some of us; singing, many.
As if our world knew not to harass,
sun beamed on us in season, moderate
tides rose and fell. Droughts? they hurt,
then broke. Floods were seldom in excess.
That was then. My time, our time is gone. Are we
to blame for the new extremes? It seems so.
We mined and burned, fished, drilled, felled, filled,
planted and mowed, irrigated too well.
We multiplied. Borrowed from the future.
Emptied the seas. Doomed great rivers.
Left in charge men who take short views
to keep us voting them back in power.
Watching the sunset feels now not what it was,
different unless brain is stilled. The lake
is busy, more with the unsustainable
spendthrifts of this town at play than the innocent
pleasures of sailboats on leisurely outings.
From the hill I watch my fill, perhaps my last.
Big changes impend. I shall be gone first.
Seattle, June 2015
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