Hymn in Ochre

I was sitting on the veranda taking in the autumn sun of a lazy late-morning Sunday
Contemplating the quiddity of poetry and debating how to fix the fault lines of the future
All this and more weighed upon my little mind; the world would be mine!

Then my mother came outside and stood observing the garden
And she said how sorrowful it is too see her children leave,
Her children into whom her life's effort went to raising

She reflected how they are grown and independent little men
As I was sitting on the veranda taking in the autumn sun of a lazy late-morning Sunday
And I felt it then

The future held more of the past and more of the future
Poetry could rot. What is my mood and my world, my little thoughts
To that great woman's reality, a life lived

What was earth-shattering and vital now is cheap and gaudy
A mawkish monument to the creed of ba-li individuality
Abstractions of mine contrasted her concrete feelings
And suddenly concrete was heavier than air, and yet I breathe air