The Stairs
This late afternoon, following an hourlong workout
In my office building's fitness center
(Where, seven days a week,
I take a break from my love-labor of composing poems),
I trudged upstairs, to my suite — forty-three steep steps —
Panting, limbs exhausted, feet aching,
Lactic acid having depleted my reserves against fatigue,
Holding sway over my sixty-seven-year-old body,
No matter that I've fought to stay in shape.
And as I climbed those three flights of stairs,
I couldn't help but be reminded of my days at Yale,
When I rowed freshman, then varsity, heavyweight crew,
Devoting a part of each winter afternoon,
When the Housatonic River was frozen solid,
To running, three times, nonstop, all nine and a half flights
Of the Payne Whitney Gymnasium's unforgiving stairs,
Believing myself as indomitable as Prometheus, Zeus,
Refusing to foresee the me I'd be, fifty years hence.
02/04/09 - (2)
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