The Sixties
The cruelties of April
and mornings in America still
reverberate even now
on the further side of the hill
with our sixties behind us
and the day getting late
and the old wars behind us
and our hair turned white
there's a late snowfall
melting fast into the Hoosic
River there's a natural bridge
the water rushes below and through
and down over ledges into a gorge
so deep no one can see how
it ends or if it ends at all
(4//22/23)
"The Sixties" is a 15-line sonnet written in response to a birthday sonnet sent to me by my old friend and collaborator David Lehman. The poem looks back to the historical experience we've shared, and forward to the time when inevitably we ourselves will be history.
— Bill Wadsworth