A Very Old Poem

What do you think?

Never published, if I’m not mistaken. I look at these old poems and think, what have I learned since, as a poet? What would I change?

Ars Poetica

Light’s staying longer now. Over the winter 
the trunk of the woodpecker-tree sheared off 
at the top  when I wasn’t looking. 

Emily Dickinson would have made a tiny monument  
of each day, in case it went on changing without her. 
Meanwhile, the cats watch me 

with their round eyes and pale stomachs. I am their 
alpha and omega, good for opening the refrigerator. 
Whitman, of course, 

would have collected Dickinson, cats, trees, the pencil-
thin woodpecker’s tap. The one leaf shooting straight 
upwards in the wind would have been 

a revelation, trailing long sentences. Sometimes 
I don’t know why I bother to try, both extremes covered 
already. Maybe I do it 

for the cats, to hold them off a while longer, 
to keep them from getting fat.