Poetry |

“In These My Lear Years”

In These My Lear Years

 

 

       I   am led

                         Around

With

          My declining

                                  Vision,

Not a blindness

                            Not by a boy

                                                    But by a small wind.

Not on a heath

                            But Harding St.

                                                       Jefferson, Louisiana.

Lear,

            It’s ok.

                          You have your way

Of doing

                 This senescence,

                                              I have mine.

But In my decline

                                Little exultations

                                                               Triumph, part of the fabric

This magic carpet unrolls

                                           Under my feet,

                                                                      Circling the block,

Little everlastings,

                                  Every step

                                                      A dance —

Contributor
Peter Cooley

Peter Cooley’s twelfth book of poetry is Accounting for the Dark (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2024). He is Professor Emeritus in English and former Louisiana Poet Laureate. The poem here is from his new book Little Everlastings, which will be published by Carnegie Mellon in 2027.

Posted in Poetry

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