After the Fall: Poems Old and New

Prospero, in Retirement

Prospero, in Retirement Turbulent events over, the tropical island a gruesome memory, I am a private citizen again with a sufficient if ungenerous pension provided by our good Uncle, and, while awaiting the sequence of surgeries expected in my age group, just like all the other oldies in the supermarket pushing their shopping carts— or maybe luckier, since unlike many of them, angry-faced and aggressive with their carts in the aisles, I’m not alone. I hardly can remember when, all those years, I had a public responsibility— for what, to save the world? Stimulate unawakened minds? Straighten out erroneous ideas? I no longer imagine I could! But I had healing magic in my fingertips then, and the voices of the gods encouraged me. I even dreamed that Shakespeare created me, the Magician. And when the words that came from him appeared on the page, I was Shakespeare! Only when I go on stage to do my old act, —with the hall three-quarters empty, 40 as it usually is now— do I remember how important this once was to me, and I am jolted back into the heady atmosphere of performance, of significance, of revelation, where the words matter and I’m able to connect to the heart and soul of people again— God, those poems are good! And I forget I’m just another old guy with a leaky prostate and a shopping cart. Back in my private life, I won’t read anymore about Kosovo, Chechnya, Africa. After a lifetime of horrors that basket is full and there’s no room for another massacred innocent. I am more and more cut off from the world, except in the warm embrace of my home with my wonderful friend— so lucky, so lucky, wouldn’t you say?— or on my travels abroad, where I am still connected to something greater than shopping and cooking and cutting hair— The Seven Wonders of the World, truly, The Great Adventure, The Quest, which goes on but has to end soon when these limbs grow too frail to totter to the plane. But as long as I can get my ass and my wheelie to Kennedy Airport, I’ll keep going, keep going, keep going. . . . . 41 ...