A Lover’s Quarrel with the World*

It is too early to take a nap.

His daily trip to town

put off for now,

he must wait for someone

to clear the walk to the car.

The book on his lap is open

to a poem by Robert Frost,

“The Lesson for Today.”

The lesson, he liked to say,

was that some poets

know too much for their

own good. Mr. Frost for

instance, was said to have

gone away in sourness.

Perhaps he felt he had lost

the quarrel, or it was no

longer worth the arguing.

The old man wags his finger

to the empty air, thinks

of his wife and how his life

has flagged since she died.

Outside the sparrows and jays

are after what’s left of last week’s

seed. Their lives too have fallen

into agitated sorrow, there are

no songs or seeds in the yard

or words in the book to bring

on anything more. He begins to drift,

fingering pages, wondering if it is

after all just a lover’s quarrel.

“I had a lover’s quarrel with the world”

After reading February Morning by Hayden Carruth