John Ashbery: “The Skaters”

-22-

IV

	The wind thrashes the maple seed-pods,
	The whole brilliant mass comes spattering down.

	This is my fourteenth year as governor of C province.
	I was little more than a lad when I first came here.
	Now I am old but scarcely any wiser.
	So little are white hair and a wrinkled forehead a sign of wisdom!

	To slowly raise oneself
	Hand over hand, lifting one's entire weight;
	To forget there was a possibility
	Of some more politic movement. That freedom, courage
	And pleasant company could exist.
	That has always been behind you.

	An earlier litigation: wind hard in the tops
	Of the baggy eucalyptus branches.

	Today I wrote, "The spring is late this year.
	In the early mornings there is hoar-frost on the water-meadlows.
	And on the highway the frozen ruts are papered over with ice."
	If you go out to the western gate, will anybody be likely to meet you?

The day was gloves.

	How far from the usual statement
	About time, ice--the weather itself had gone.

	I mean this. Through the years
	You have approached an inventory
	And it is now that tomorrow
	Is going to be the climax of your casual
	Statement about yourself, begun
	So long ago in humility and false quietude.

	The sands are frantic
	In the hourglass. But there is time
	To change, to utterly destroy
	That too-familiar image
	Lurking in the glass
	Each morning, at the edge of the mirror.