Donald Justice
Oct. 7th, 2004 06:34 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
ian-gazarek.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
greatpoetry"Men at Forty"
Men at forty
Learn to close softly
The doors to rooms they will not be
Coming back to.
At rest on a stair landing,
They feel it moving
Beneath them now like the deck of a ship,
Though the swell is gentle.
And deep in mirrors
They rediscover
The face of the boy as he practices tying
His father's tie there in secret,
And the face of that father,
Still warm with the mystery of lather.
They are more fathers than sons themselves now.
Something is filling them, something
That is like the twilight sound
Of the crickets, immense,
Filling the woods at the foot of the slope
Behind their mortgaged houses.
Men at forty
Learn to close softly
The doors to rooms they will not be
Coming back to.
At rest on a stair landing,
They feel it moving
Beneath them now like the deck of a ship,
Though the swell is gentle.
And deep in mirrors
They rediscover
The face of the boy as he practices tying
His father's tie there in secret,
And the face of that father,
Still warm with the mystery of lather.
They are more fathers than sons themselves now.
Something is filling them, something
That is like the twilight sound
Of the crickets, immense,
Filling the woods at the foot of the slope
Behind their mortgaged houses.
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no subject
Date: 2004-10-08 02:39 am (UTC)fantastic post (as usual).
This must be a new poem (hence the 2004),
but it seems strangely old and familiar...
no subject
Date: 2004-10-08 02:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-08 10:19 am (UTC)silly rabbit...
Date: 2004-10-08 07:05 pm (UTC)That makes perfect sense.
i'd have sworn i'd read it before-
thanks for clarifyting!
no subject
Date: 2004-10-08 09:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-08 03:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-09 04:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-09 03:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-10-11 01:33 am (UTC)