Young Man by John Haines : American Life in Poetry

The Poetry Foundation

Library of Congress

University of Nebraska
at Lincoln

American Life in Poetry: Column 95

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

Literature, and in this instance, poetry, holds a mirror to life; thus the great themes of life become the great themes of poems. Here the distinguished American poet, John Haines, addresses—and celebrates through the affirmation of poetry—our preoccupation with aging and mortality.

Young Man

I seemed always standing

before a door

to which I had no key,

although I knew it hid behind it

a gift for me.

Until one day I closed

my eyes a moment, stretched

then looked once more.

And not surprised, I did not mind it

when the hinges creaked

and, smiling, Death

held out his hands to me.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Reprinted from ABZ: A Poetry Magazine, No. 1, 2006, by permission of the author. Copyright © 2006, by John Haines, whose most recent book of poetry is Of Your Passage, O Summer, Limberlost Press, 2004. Introduction copyright © 2009 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

POEM SEARCH