The neighbors up early might see Fred Astaire
by my kitchen sink tapping the spout to prepare
Mister Coffee. That set, he pirouettes
with plates he deals like cards, jetés
with kibble for the dog, then glides in the dark
to the deck where he stretches bird feed to its hook.I pour the coffee and open my prayer book.
Later, the rounds of the market, the park,
the church, the Home to sing Mom Sinatra.
First, I read this morning mantra:
In You we move and have our being.
They think it's a lonely old dancer they're seeing.
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On his birthdays, John Updike wrote sonnets to take stock of his inner and outer worlds. I emulated him on my birthday in July. But the form didn't fit the content; it needed something lighter, more like the rhyme-studded songs that Astaire made famous.
Surprise: the more I cut, the more content emerged that hadn't fit in the wordier drafts.
Updike, who died at 77, included the birthday sonnets of his 70s in the posthumous collection of poems Endpoint. Fear of death had powered his fiction and poetry for decades; facing the real thing in his hospital room, he expressed peace and gratitude. See Light at Sunset for my reflection on Endpoint. For a curated list of my essays about Updike and his work, see my Updike page.- WSS
