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Three short poems about being 74 (with appreciation for Milosz)


Gary Lindorff
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By the lagoon


Why do I keep writing and writing and writing?

Because the water keeps lapping and lapping and lapping.

The birds keep flying and singing and flying.

The boats, passing and passing and passing.

And because if I don't keep writing

Who will know any of this?

It will be too easy to think that I just lived and died

With a beach towel over my knees

So they don't burn in the pitiless sun.


Advice to the new arrival


Live for a hundred years, yes

That goes without saying.

But, more importantly,

Read the instructions carefully!

And remove your shoes before entering.


The pageant


This pageant consists of wave after wave.

This pageant features a seagull fending off a crow

So that he might consume his morsel.

It features me right in the middle

Slouched in a beach chair

Dressed in three layers

Against a chill wind.

(To my left the beach extends beyond my sight

And the same to the right, forever.)

This pageant features my squandering

Another of my 800,000 allotted sighs.

(And I hope that in this lifetime.

I will be treated to a flash of knowing

Why I am here. . .

And please, don't let it be

About the pageant

But about what lies beyond my sight.

Because I do not plan to walk

Either left or right.

I have seen enough.

I just need to know.)


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Gary Lindorff is a poet, writer, blogger and author of five nonfiction books, three collections of poetry, "Children to the Mountain", "The Last recurrent Dream" (Two Plum Press), "Conversations with Poetry (coauthored with Tom Cowan), and (more...)
 

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