by Donald Hall
To grow old is to lose everything.
Aging， everybody knows it.
Even when we are young，
we glimpse it sometimes， and nod our heads
when a grandfather dies.
Then we row for years on the midsummer
pond， ignorant and content. But a marriage，
that began without harm， scatters1
into debris2 on the shore，
and a friend from school drops
cold on a rocky strand3.
If a new love carries us
past middle age， our wife will die
at her strongest and most beautiful.
New women come and go. All go.
The pretty lover who announces
that she is temporary
is temporary. The bold woman，
middle-aged4 against our old age，
sinks under an anxiety she cannot withstand.
Another friend of decades estranges5 himself
in words that pollute thirty years.
Let us stifle6 under mud at the pond's edge
and affirm that it is fitting
and delicious to lose everything.
