Somebody Wrote a Youth Concerto
Somebody wrote a Youth Concerto.
Who ever wrote an Age Concerto,
or found one at a dump, or standing
in a side yard where the snow blows by it
so fast the grass still shows in January?
Suppose they thawed her out and oiled her up,
she’d stagger to start and then wallow
like an old man walking through the waves
along the beach of memory.
Mother-led kids see he’s out too deep,
and the youth burn in their concerto
of maidens bathed in coconut oil
way high up on the dunes in hot sand
and joke about how he must be numb.
But he can feel the cold, all right,
and he can feel the slimy seaweed
and chafing sand, and he tastes the salt,
and he can hear the roar of time,
and he can see beyond the daylight.