Classic Poem

They are so moving in
their sadness, gentleness and longing —
all the sad old men who once
were all the sad young men.

How can you not be moved
by their loneliness and desolation —
their faint dreams and hopes
of love, a new love, a friendship?

The poorest and the ugliest still long
for just a passing warmth, a touch,
the clasp of hands, the feel, the joy
of another's nakedness and strength and grace
enriching all that poverty and emptiness and death.

Friendship is only for the young.
But it should be for the old also.
The old have more need of friends
than the young, who have too many.

When I was younger and better-looking
I always offered myself to old men.
I had young men too, sometimes, but
with the old I felt a special love.
I used to feel like a radiant blond angel
coming down to deliver them from
the darkness of their stinking cottages,
the weary wanderings of the parks, the baths,
patient waitings with aching backs and swollen ankles
in the dark at the back of the movies.

Fatuous youth! And yet my foolishness
came from the heart: I wanted them to be loved
as much as I was. And even more important —
I came to them, and they
never denied me, as the young so often did
in their caprice and frivolity and meanness.
The old are always serious. They have to be.
It was for that I loved them.

— Now I am older, I still love old men,
but there are no young angels
like the one I was in my golden days.