Volume > Issue > Old Age

Old Age

A POEM

By Anne Keith | November 1983

Accept the wind —

Insanity would fight it now.

It is no angel to be wrestled with.

Accept the wind —

Exalting in the ripping off of color

from the trees.

It deals in stripping and revealing

nakedness.

Accept the wind —

The time has come for seeing

Trunk, and limb, and twig.

Accept it with great joy

Knowing that God appointed sap

To rise again.

To Phoebe*

Phoebe,

Gentle handmaid

Of us all,

Who assisted Paul

And others

Of the early church,

…

Processional (upon seeing Dürer’s woodcut of Roswitha)

By Dürer’s hand, I saw her kneeling down

Before the Emperor: Roswitha — she

Who…

The Will

I’ve heard of those on milk and honey fed

But when I set about to…