Life is new. Life is new.
You have no idea how much this is true.
Do you know how much is forgotten and old?
Which laughed and burned, but today is cold?
You don’t believe how old the old is, do you?
It’s unbelievable how much is old; a few
Minutes ago is dead, and that’s not life. Life is new.
The world, old and forgotten, is vast.
You sit on it, new—compared to the past.
Have you examined the shop which sells old things?
Beauties now forgotten? And unknown kings?
Dust and darkness fell upon the bold,
The world’s fame to ignorance was sold.
The songs—then—would be popular—now.
They are. Look. They will tell you how
Old things become new, then old, then new.
Some—who are dead—look exactly like you.
The night and the night’s bells don’t remember each other.
Nothing does. Don’t surrender.
And that moment in which she—
The one you loved! What did she do? The past is sketchy.
The past is troublesome. The past won’t do.
Your odd dreams are dead. Life is new.
The cover of an old book on Yeats. The dry river bank still thrills.
Dreaming closets. A painting takes your eyes into squiggly hills.
Here. Bring this picture into the light.
The color one. Look. Here you are in black and white.
Tears! Nostalgia! The blank and writhing world still loves you.
The world, seen, has nothing else to do,
So woven clouds move to this cloudy street where you
Duck out of the shop, in reverie. Life is new.