October 5, 2022An Old Man
An old man, stooped over the table,
sits in the hubbub of a café’s middle,
alone, a newspaper open before his face.
And scorning the misery of age
he thinks how little he engaged
the time when he had strength and speech and grace.
He’s much declined; he knows it, sees it,
though years when he was young still please
by seeming close. How small a span, how small!
He thinks about how good sense laughed
at him, while he believed—how mad!—
that cheat who promised “all the time in the world.”
He recalls the urges he controlled,
joy given up, his caution cold,
and every lost chance that haunts him now.
But all this thinking and remembering
dizzies him. Soon he’s slumbering
at the café table with his head laid down.
Translated from the Greek by David Mason
from #77 - Fall 2022