This is no moment to be looking back.
Nor for the tallying of what I lack—
For rummaging among life’s bric-a-brac.
Sixty-three is not the time for attics.

Nor can it be a time to turn to prayer.
Those blasphemies of terror past all care,
Staining blue lips as lungs cry out for air.
Sixty-three is young for such gymnastics.

Have I the wit to clamber from this shell?
The wine-dark sea is wide—some caravel
Might carry me beyond the gates of hell.
Sixty-three was a good age for Ulysses.

The age of gifts is gone. What age is this:
All plans on hold—an odd paralysis
As cliches coalesce to cowardice?
Sixty-three becomes no man or woman.