Men at Forty
by Donald Justice
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 fact 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.
This is really nice. But did you just spend the morning looking at your crow's feet in the mirror?
ReplyDeleteFantastic poem Pete! Never read it before. This morning I rubbed at my salt and pepper stubble wondering where the last 41 years have gone. Then tonight as I ruffled my son's hair, it dawned on me that I don't really care... it was time well spent.
ReplyDelete