Bisected now by bleaker Griefs, we
Envy the Despair that devastates the
Childhood realm – so Easy to Repair²
Rheumy eyes see Children play – see
Only Transience in their Shrill Elation
And wholehearted commitment to Life³
Wisdom’s a Gift but you’d Change it for
Youth – Age is an Honor, it’s still not the Truth⁴
It isn’t when you’ve lived a Great Many Years that
You get Old – but when you Forget being a Child⁵
It’s as we go Onward in Life, when objects Lose
A Freshness of Hue and our Souls a Delicacy of
Perception, that Beauty’s spirit is most Needed⁶
An Endless Ego-Existence is more Dreadful
To me than the idea of Letting Go the self
In Death – to Rejoin shared Eternal Being⁷
Because once on a time you were Young,
Sing of what is taking place – talk to us
For a spell, Confer your Special Grace⁸
Kissed by World-Shards, Scarred
By Time-Grains – by Time-Dust⁹
Ancient Arms to Infant Light¹⁰
¹ Thomas Campian, Integer Vitae
² Emily Dickinson, Childhood Griefs
³ Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things
⁴ Rostam Batmanglij, Ezra Koenig, & David Gates, Step
⁵ Valentin Rasputin tr. Eve Manning, French Lessons
⁶ Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Artist of the Beautiful
⁷ Ursula K. Le Guin, Afterward to The Farthest Shore
⁸ Sappho tr. Aaron Poochigian, Because Once on a Time
⁹ Paul Celan tr. Nikolai Popov & Heather McHugh, Flung Wood
¹⁰ Denise Levertov, Candlemas