On My 62nd Birthday Poem by Anne Higgins

Too slow for those who wait,
you fly for those who dance.
Who knows where you go?
You pass slowly up here in the mountains
and once you were on my side,
you old gypsyman,
with your winged chariot hurrying near.

I'm wasting you on my garden.
if I could, I would sit beside
the new yucca blossom
spiking out of extravagant blades
a giant asparagus,
green phallus,
to see it unfold into white waxy bells
before my eyes.

I notice that
the very old,
like the very young,
change by the day.
Each week they look different,
growing toward the ground.