foo late. From the alcove
Came the cough, the whimper
Of the old man whom sunset wakes.
Truly, could you bear another night
Keeping
him
company while he raved, agreeing
To Persia on horseback-just you two I- when even
The garden path had been forbidden,
He was so feeble. Feeble!
He grasped your pulse
In his big gray-haired hand,
Crevasses opening, numb azure.
Wait
He breathed and glittered.
Y ou'l[ regret
You want to Read my will first Don't
Your old father All he has Be yours
Hours you raised the dark rum to his lips.
Your eyes burned. Your voice said:
"All right, we'll read Cervantes, we'll take trips.
She you loved lives. You'll see her in the morning.
You'll get well. You'll be proud of me. Don't smile!
I love you. I'll find work. You'll-I'll-"
It was light and late.
You could not remember
Sleeping.
It
hurt to rise.
There stood
Those features' ice-crowned, tanned (by what?)
Landmark, like yours unwrinkled in repose.
Pouring strong tea and hot,
You swiftly wrote:
"... this long silence. I don't know what's the matter with me. All
winter I have been trying to discipline myself-'Empty the mind,' as
they say in the handbooks, 'concentrate upon one thing, any thing,
the snowflake, the granite it falls upon, the planet risen opposite,
etc., etc.'-and failing, failing. Quicksands of leisure! Now summer's
