Pass It On, III

By Rachel Hadas

Lilacs look neon in fading light.

Death makes life shine:

a tiredness, a flickering between

ages, which is each age;

a piling up to tottering

and falling back to sand.

So much for cycle. The front door lock

sticks each fall when we’re first back.

We are advised to oil it.

Olive oil in the keyhole:

again the old key turns.

Once again to meander

along the edge of water,

whether tideless sea or tidal river,

pushing the stroller, dreaming

oil in the lock; the key

dipped in lubricity

the boychild’s shining skin

me tired to the bone

Already summer’s over.

Goodbye, lilacs. Your

neon is past; you’ll bloom again

next spring. Past an age

each season feels like an end of summer

but still the tale’s to tell

over and over for those

lolling and snoozing in the stroller,

preparing to come after.

Tall house standing on its high green hill—

children, do you remember?

Lawns slant down to a stream.

Under a striped tent

a buffet’s spread in the sun.

Ideas of the eternal,

once molten, harden; cool.

Oil, oil in the lock.

The old key turns.

Copyright Credit: Rachel Hadas, “Pass It On, III” from Halfway Down the Hall: New and Selected Poems. Copyright © 1998 by Rachel Hadas. Reprinted with the permission of Wesleyan University Press.

Source: Halfway Down the Hall: New and Selected Poems (Wesleyan University Press, 1998)