Little did I know when I concocted
my potion that, although one may stop time,
it is impossible to turn it back.
Youth, they say, is wasted on the young.
Perhaps I'll have a T-shirt made that reads,
Eternal life is wasted on the old.
And yet the world is no less beautiful.
Toward evening dew collects upon the lawn, rising again as fireflies. Above
the white steepled church a flock of swallows
copies a Greek text out in hieroglyphs,
and in the maple trees a light breeze stirs,
sounding for all the world like water falling
distantly off the edges of the world.
