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the white boat 53
The bright quick-moving length of it's here
Along with sun and oak and rock
O brief survival
Glittering in the light and air
And in the dark unbreakable silence there
The new arrival.
`for the life of a man comes upon him
slowly and insensibly...'
-- Jeremy Taylor
He puts down his book -- it is
the works of one of the number of
the old poets he still loves very much, has
loved for a long time -- and noticing
the loveliness of the weak light
of the winter afternoon sloping in
and lying so bleakly and hesitantly
and quietly on the rounded upper
surfaces of the bare branches
and knobby twigs of the trees
he can see from the window,
he thinks, And that, just as
it is just now
-- that is plenty.
old man afraid
Whiskey of youth once mine,
White fi re straight from the coil
Of a hidden still ...
Cool, dark I keep the wine
Of age, that yet may spoil,
Or handled, spill.