I tasted and spat
as the experts did
so I could taste again.
I put my nose in. I cleansed
my palate with bread.
A friend guided me;
he thought because I drank often
I drank well.
He thought I might be looking
for subtleties, as he was.
My vocabulary was “good”
and “not so good.”
I was usually a drinker
looking for a mood.
We moved among the oak barrels
and private reserves,
the fine talk of the serious
performing their delicate
mysterious craft.
Yet about the art of aging
I found myself indifferent,
nothing to say or ask.
We went outside,
walked among the woody vines
and fleshy, often violet,
sometimes green, prodigal
smooth-skinned grapes.
The day was beautiful.
My friend was happy, sated.
There’s never enough, I thought.
There can never be enough.
Stephen Dunn
Stephen Dunn is the author of fourteen collections of poetry, including the recent Everything Else in the World (Norton), which was awarded the Paterson Prize for Sustained Literary Acheivement. His Different Hours won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize. A book of his essays and memoirs, Walking Light, is available from BOA. He divides his time between Frostburg, Maryland and southern New Jersey, where he is Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at Richard Stockton College.
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