Classic Poem

OLD MAN

Below your skull a social gathering glows.
Weak animosities exchange a last
Chat with emotional ambassadors
Who honor the importance of your past.
You turn your hammock and surrender limbs
To sunlight, and increase the hammock's swing
As though you suavely bargained with a friend.
Its answers are impersonal and bring
A tolerance that wounds your lack of strength.
A final insurrection cleaves your rest.
You raise your back, then lower it, convinced
That motion now would be a needless test . . . .
And with your falling back, the gathering
Within your head melts through a door, chagrined,
And everything within you dies except
A blue and golden hammock in the wind.