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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72" style='word-wrap:break-word'><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal>At Sixty-Five<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Henri Cole - 1955-<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>It was all so different than he expected.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>For years he’d been agnostic; now he meditated.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>For years he’d dreamed of being an artist living abroad;<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>now he reread Baudelaire, Emerson, Bishop.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>He’d never considered marriage . . .<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Still, a force through green did fuse.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Yes, he wore his pants looser.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>No, he didn’t do crosswords in bed.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>No, he didn’t file for Social Security.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Yes, he danced alone in the bathroom mirror,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>since younger men expected generosity.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Long ago, his thesis had been described as promising,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>“with psychological heat and the consuming<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>will of nature.” Now he thought, “This then is all.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>On the rooftop, in pale flickering moonlight,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>he pondered the annihilated earth.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>At the pond, half-a-mile across was not<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>too far to swim because he seemed to be<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>going toward something. Yes, the love impulse<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>had frequently revealed itself in terms of conflict;<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>but this was an old sound, an austere element.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Yes, he’d been no angel and so what . . .<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Yes, tiny moths emerged from the hall closet.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Yes, the odor of kombucha made him sick.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Yes, he lay for hours pondering the treetops,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>the matriarchal clouds, the moon.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Though his spleen collected melancholy trophies,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>his imagination was not impeded.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Copyright © 2022 by Henri Cole. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on December 5, 2022, by the Academy of American Poets.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Henri Cole<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Henri Cole was born in Fukuoka, Japan, in 1956 and raised in Virginia.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'>Ann M. Chiappetta, M.S.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'>Making Meaningful ConnectionsThrough Media <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>914.393.6605 USA<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><a href="mailto:Anniecms64@gmail.com">Anniecms64@gmail.com</a><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>All things Annie: <a href="http://www.annchiappetta.com">www.annchiappetta.com</a> <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>