The Passing World

untitled (acrylic/ink) 42 x 56 cm by Karin Goeppert

OLD POET

                                For Jack Gilbert

Wrestling with austerities

in thorny, bare spaces. Smooth and

congenial as cactus, you cast yourself out.

All the crimes of a life—did you ever

injure a man, damage a woman?—you presented

quietly, in dry image, no obvious shame, rhetoric

not too richly seasoned, just a sprinkle 

of rosemary or sage on a lamb chop.

You talked to God but didn’t believe in Him.

You blamed the Devil for spreading pain

then thanked Him for Palladian moonlight,

for roasted goat meat on a mountainside   

in Greece. Romantic, Modernist, Individualist.

Experts said that you were the end of all these things:

what a luxury not being post whatever: being just

an inch before the after. Pleasure you damned faintly   

for not lasting long enough, for demanding renewal,      

and yet you delighted in appetite. And suffering

was as much to be enjoyed as the texture

of a woman’s skin, as the aroma of ripe tomatoes   

in Umbrian summer. Beaten on by the sun and by the wind, in    

exile even at home, feral hearted, you were wary of comfort,   

of growing mild in old age: you need not have worried about that. 

 

Remember Shakti

John McLaughlin/Zakir Hussain and guests