An Entertainment for W.S. Graham for Him Having Reached Sixty-Five
By W. S. Graham
What are you going to do
With what is left of yourself
Now among the rustling
Of your maybe best years?
This is not an auto-elegy
With me pouring my heart
Out into where you
Differently stand or sit
On the Epidaurus steps.
What shall I say to myself
Having put myself down
On to a public page?
Where am I going now?
And where are you going
Tricked into reading
Words of my later life?
Let me pretend you are
Roughly of my age.
Are you a boy or a girl?
And what has happened to you?
Look at the chirping various
Leaves of Mr Graham’s
Spanking summer. Where are
You at? I know my face
Has changed. My hair has blanched
Into a wrong disguise
Sitting on top of my head.
Beside each other perched
On the Epidaurus steps.
Where am I going to go?
Shall I rise to follow
The thin sound of the goats
Tinkling their bells?
Notes:
Poem copyright of the Estate of W.S. Graham, 2018.
Source: Poetry (January 2018)