When you reflect upon your past
as a kind of past-time
you know you’ve reached
your middle age
and if you crave
a manifestation of ideals
squeezing tomorrow out
of today
then you are still juvenile
of course there is the dread
that the world is ours to renew
is that true?
and death’s sublime “boo”
retreats us into a womb
of industry
strange, mechanical churning
what is a person to do?
scurry
towards his own brand of food

within there is no smell
without its perfume