“Is it I who have come to this age
or is it the age that has come to me
which one has brought along all these
silent images on their shadowy river”

W. S. Merwin
“Not Early Or Late”

He was a child of the 1960s
now that child grown old
wise at last, what a girl

the summer of ’66, releasing
his hand, had whispered

he might acquire, learn love
was more than desire and flight

and sent him off with the Byrds
declaring a time, a season
of sowing and reaping

a harvest–what darkness
could descend on Mississippi

and Alabama, a people marching
toward the promised light

a summer turned twenty-one
Santa Monica, Pacific Palisades
winding the Coast Highway

Janis and Jimi, Grace
MacArthur Park

melting into Philly
Judy singing someday soon

Danang and . . .
somehow back
to a red-haired woman

who took his hand
Be Healed

the seasons turning
a time for

abandoning self
following this page
whatever might come

Notes:
“Turn, Turn, Turn.” The title of the Byrds’ 1965 hit song, lyrics by Pete Seeger, echoing Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8.

Merwin, W. S. “Not Early Or Late.” Garden Time, Copper Canyon Press, 2016, p. 5.