Literature -- and in this instance, poetry -- holds a mirror to life; thus the great themes of life become the great themes of poems. Here the distinguished American poet John Haines addresses -- and celebrates through the affirmation of poetry -- our preoccupation with aging and mortality.
--Ted Kooser
"Young Man"
I seemed always standing
before a door
to which I had no key,
although I knew it hid behind it
a gift for me.
Until one day I closed
my eyes a moment, stretched
then looked once more.
And not surprised, I did not mind it
when the hinges creaked
and, smiling, Death
held out his hands to me.
Ted Kooser was U.S. poet laureate, 2004-06. Copyright 2006 by John Haines. Reprinted from ?ABZ: A Poetry Magazine,? No. 1, 2006, by permission of the author. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.