Other People's Poems: A lovely poem by E.B. White

  Youth and Age

This is what youth must figure out:

Girls, love, and living.

The having, the not having,

The spending and giving,

And the melancholy time of not knowing.

This is what age must learn about:

The ABC of dying.

The going, yet not going.

The loving and leaving,

And the unbearable knowing and knowing

E.B. White

Poems and Sketches

Poems by Other People: "Hay for the Horses"

     Hay for the Horses

He had driven half the night
From far down San Joaquin
Through Mariposa, up the
Dangerous Mountain roads,
And pulled in at eight a.m.
With his big truckload of hay
   behind the barn.
With winch and ropes and hooks
We stacked the bales up clean
To splintery redwood rafters
High in the dark, flecks of alfalfa
whirling through shingle-cracks of light,
Itch of haydust in the
     sweaty shirt and shoes.
At lunchtime under Black oak
Out in the hot corral,
--The old mare nosing lunchpails,
Grasshoppers crackling in the weeds--
"I'm sixty-eight" he said,
"I first bucked hay when I was seventeen.
I thought, that day I started,
I sure would hate to do this all my life.
And dammit, that's just what
I've gone and done."

      Gary Snyder

Other People's Poems: "Poem about Morning"

          Poem About Morning

Whether it's sunny or not, it's sure
To be enormously complex--
Trees or streets outdoors, indoors whoever you share,
And yourself, thirsty, hungry, washing,
An attitude towards sex.
No wonder half of you wants to stay
With your head dark and wishing
Rather than take it all on again:
Weren't you duped yesterday?
Things are not orderly here, no matter what they way.

But the clock goes off, if you have a dog
It wags, if you get up now you'll be less
Late.  Life is some kind of loathsome hag
Who is forever threatening to turn beautiful.
Now she gives you a quick toothpaste kiss
And puts a glass of cold cranberry juice,
Like a big fake garnet, in your hand.
Cranberry juice!  You're lucky, on the whole,
But there is a great deal about it you don't understand.


          William Meredith