September twenty-second, Sir, the bough cracks with unpicked apples, and at dawn the small-mouth bass breaks water, gorged with spawn.

We feel the machine slipping from our hands As if someone else were steering; If we see light at the end of the tunnel, It's the light of the oncoming train.

Middle Age At forty-five, What next, what next? At every corner, I meet my Father, My age, still alive.

We are all old-timers, each of us holds a locked razor.

It's the light of the oncoming train.

And blue-lung'd combers lumbered to the kill.

Poetry is not the record of an event: it is an event.