I am washed and washed in the river
of earthly delight
And what are you going to do
- what can you do about it -
deep blue night?
I.
I didn’t think I’d amount to much,
now look at us.
He said,
In the big house
we’ll have a separate room
for the piano
but it didn’t fit through the door.
He squeezed her hand tight
at the wedding of the 20-somethings.
When her hair is short,
and she wears it in a clip,
she could be a school girl and
not nearing sixty.
His hair is sparse and spiked.
He wears an odd glove to protect one hand
In the sun they share a chardonnay,
he can’t let her out of his sight.
This is lovely, lovely.
What are you going to do about it
deep blue night?
II.
Enormous intellect
incredibly high functioning
He is losing function,
losing function
They let him keep working
A prince of a man
A deadly combination
He fell in the bathroom in Hawaii
He doesn’t see it,
doesn’t see it
He said,
I just keep doing things
to prove I’m worth something.
III.
They go for walks
make veal from Tuscan cookbooks
and read things aloud from the newspaper
in the castle they built
for when they were old
and together all the time,
with the goldenrod in the fields
and the piano’s notes
alighting on the window sills.
He holds her in the stillness.
I am washed and washed
in the river of earthly delight.
What are you going to do
What can you do about it
deep blue night?
His children come to say goodbye,
one by one.
The house is messy
with their generosity.
She says, awake with me
just before morning,
while it is still dark.
I'll make the coffee
and we’ll listen for the sound of that bird
that only lives here on the preserve.
We’ll cup our hands around the warmth
and listen, listen really hard.
