I found the book you gave me
fifty years ago.
Where are you, Patty O'Neil?
Ferlighetti, City Lights, the cover gone:
I wish I could remember
what you had written.
Yellowed pages, I've read them again,
slower this time,
with true gratitude.
I understand it better now,
who you were, and what we had,
and why it wouldn't last.
It's only human to be sad,
living in the past,
Irish as we are.
Where are you Patty O'Neil?
Permit me to confess
you still disturb my rest.
Forgive an aging animal
for mining memory
and sunsets while he can.
All we really care about,
we realize so late,
is love and death.
–Lawrence Ferlinghetti turned 100 years old on March 24th of this year.
