On the bus –

reading about Basho’s travels

on foot.

 

Strangely,

like Ulysses,

I always thought that home

was a place you could leave.

 

Unlike most arrivals –

the closer we get,

the less clear, the more unknown.

 

The amazing thing

is not that we will die,

but that we were alive.

 

They’re so polite today –

the perfect curve of the waves,

the smooth sheet of foam.

 

A hundred compromises accepted,

but some turned out better

than expected.

 

When you’re young,

you think you have choices.

When you’re old,

you think you chose.

 

It’s so strange,

to be so old and yet so strong,

so strong and yet so old.

 

Lying in bed,

deciding to make

the first decision of the day.

 

Tired from doing too much,

tired from doing too little,

but grateful for having the choice.

 

Which memories

should I sort through today —

what I did, or what I didn’t do?

 

At my age,

I should be thinking big thoughts,

getting ready.

 

The world is a patient teacher;

you can fail

as often as you like.

 

When I drop the leash,

she waits for me to pick it up.

The leash means freedom.

 

My body was once my slave,

but now,

rebellions are breaking out all over.

 

I can’t quite give up the idea

I might attract that pretty girl.

 

I wish

beauty were a kind of pill

that I could take every day

and never overdose.

 

I put off the moment

when I turn out the light

and admit the day is over.

 

How strange —

the one thing that lonely people want

is to be left alone.

 

Beauty —

so much is contained in the word,

implied, regretted, hoped for.

 

With my wife —

watching the wind

batter the trees.

 

Frank Robinson is retired director of the Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University, former director of the Museum of Art at the Rhode Island School of Design and an art historian and poet. His end-of-the-year poems are a tradition.