I no longer seek to understand
the shilly shag of aspiration
more the settled stone
why try to steal the wind?
having seen the veils of rhetoric
fall to tumbleweeds
out of the ribs of ambition
skilled out slim as fish bone
swallow a broken habit breathe it out cloud
a thing of loose direction
consider the driveway
a persistence of grasses
a child asked me do the trees hold up the sky?
they must because they’re higher
all purpose centre fold
life rails against the palings
or winds by a course of events
made firm as lighthouse standings
in the words of cast nets
this battery limited by mortal fatigue
as the flaw in an infant’s summer
endless in its grasp will finally falter
at a rendezvous beyond all appraisal
I wrote a reflection at 62, and 64, and now at 66.
James Walton Poetry 