On My Fortieth Birthday

Feeling no-age (not yet ageless like

the sky )-I have been lived by a starving youth

my steady will of spite and wrath

could not destroy. Now the few things I seek

I mostly achieve, and awake, :

fulfilled even before my children rude ~

crowd me out o' the world: this interlude

is still; obedient, thunderstruck,

Awake, I dream how I shall be and hover

ageless like the sky: the clouds disperse

in dry blue here and elsewhere laden gather

in the hoarse breathing of the universe

-unmoved, moody-and to one long scan

all stars comprise the constellation Man.