Care

A bare chair in a bare room
With tan walls and a plank floor

And four panes on a green world
Of leaves past the two-ply glass,

Coins of gold light in the dust
On the chair, on the wood floor—

That’s all an old man could want,
If he’s not in too much pain.

The chair sits close to the glass,
Perched so the old man can stare

Out of the brown and gold room
At the green, as if he peered

Down through the shine of a pond
Where the sun was made of fish

Or the fish were made of light,
And the leaves were shades of moss

So deep they hid the dark graves
Of a world that was not there

And did not have to be there.
The old man’s so pleased. Take care.