Growing old in shabby clothes
is painful for one
who wanted all my life
to wear something handsome
under the handsome sun.
In darkness under the bent
moon I bend
to pick from the frozen dusty road
a shred of birch bark
blowing in the wind.
Hayden Carruth
Hayden Carruth published twenty-nine books, most recently Toward the Distant Islands: New and Selected Poems (2006). He was editor of Poetry, poetry editor of Harper's, and, for 20 years, an advisory editor of The Hudson Review.
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