Poems
JOHN HOLLANDER
Across the Board, Pamassus Stakes
BANG! (the starter's pistol) and we begin.
Whatever you may have staked upon the race
There's something you will have to come to know
We can hear nothing in the thundering din;
The voice of comment dies without a trace.
No matter what you're saying: there they go!
With Surface scratched (to nobody's chagrin)
The gelding Hope maintains a lightning pace
Beside whom Possibility seems slow.
Now randy Yang pursues the fleeing Yin
Unwitting of the truth we all must face :
Whatever begins in joy will end in woe;
What do they flee from that must be within
Themselves? is it others, or Time they chase,
Hoping to reap what they won't have to sow?
To
"Come back home wid a pocket full ob tin"
But not quite in the money's no disgrace;
Yet losing's in no way to win, although
We could remark that it all had been
- Given the facts that the particular case
Presented - quite unquestionably
vaut
Le
voyage;
as when we go out for a spin
On some grand afternoon and at the base
Of a great hill, we turn, and in the glow
Of sunset, like a map on which we pin
Our hopes we see revealed the recent space
Of the plain we'd just climbed from, far below.
