Evening of Life

The evening of life is a strange place, where forever

The things that we started and never achieved return to

plague us:

Strange movements in the air, smiles, groans, indirections

Pursue the heart through life's evening. Here will assemble

Those who have died and gone before us. They seem now

close at hand.

We almost can touch them sometimes. Their shadows stead-

ily mock us

With the works we might have done and did not; the forever

unaccomplished.

One who went out after years of pain, and one who went

too sudden:

It was as if he vanished-both are equal now as age

Hobbles into our dwelling place, not to be driven away.

This one accompanies our steps, that one waits for us just

outside,

As the young look on with their eloquent non-understanding

Which is needful for them if they ever can gain a foothold

On the edge of life, beyond the acceptance of deadly rou-

tine;

They are as we were when we were young. Life's evening

Is packed full of meanings, more than thoughts or hopes;

Is more of a distraction than a good, without the steady

movement

Of purpose fulfilling it all, the divesting of flesh, the becom-

ing

Like to that hollow center around which revolves a wheel.