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30 Poems, Number 4
May. 2nd, 2010 08:49 amYesterday was so annoying, I'm tempted to put up Kipling's "If"...
Instead, here is one from The Aged Poet I refer to here from time to time. In fact, as a special bonus here's a chance to hear him reading it.
I tried to piece out what it tells me, and I come back to a very simple acknowledgment of the movement of lives through time and the desire to do so while retaining a little grace and dignity. I think my mother always focused on the second stanza, reading it as a rejection of the search for meaning in place of a focus on the self. But I think that says more about her hang-ups than her friend's. His awe at the way the mantel can take the marks of time and remain beautiful, turn them into part of its beauty, his appreciation for life-worn faces, how the treasures in his drawer touch him, his memory of his father's eye--this isn't self-absorption, much less selfishness or a desire to avoid responsibility. It's an acceptance and celebration of how time changes us, changes everything, and the beauty that can come out of that.
Instead, here is one from The Aged Poet I refer to here from time to time. In fact, as a special bonus here's a chance to hear him reading it.
I tried to piece out what it tells me, and I come back to a very simple acknowledgment of the movement of lives through time and the desire to do so while retaining a little grace and dignity. I think my mother always focused on the second stanza, reading it as a rejection of the search for meaning in place of a focus on the self. But I think that says more about her hang-ups than her friend's. His awe at the way the mantel can take the marks of time and remain beautiful, turn them into part of its beauty, his appreciation for life-worn faces, how the treasures in his drawer touch him, his memory of his father's eye--this isn't self-absorption, much less selfishness or a desire to avoid responsibility. It's an acceptance and celebration of how time changes us, changes everything, and the beauty that can come out of that.
