Five Poems

Reflecting on Old Age
We are as light as wood ash, dense as stone.
Our muscles come to know the weight of bone,
The sensual happiness of lying down.
A little milk the gradual years have pressed
Into our eyes that easily over-run.
Our vague hair is as volatile as dust.

Waking and sleep are mutual, so far on
In marriage that we speak of one alone,
Sleep without waking, as in a foreign tongue
Stumbling on consonants. Against the dark,
Coeval kindness, beneficence of the young
With our time's cares cross in a lattice-work.

Honey of small events, of passing states
We take - as when a light flame oscillates
...