Hm . . . Memorable . . . what? (He peers closer.) Equinox, memorable equinox. (He raises his head, stares blankly front. Puzzled.) Memorable equinox? . . . (Pause. He shrugs his head shoulders, peers again at ledger, reads.) Farewell to--(he turns the page)--love.
-- Samuel Beckett, Krapp’s Last Tape
In Florida, autumn came
as a change in the light
in late afternoon,
around mid-October.
I hardly noticed it
until I was nineteen.
A girlfriend left me.
I wrote a poem, ephemeral
as the love it mourned.
At sixty, autumn seems
like that last song
by Dave Guard’s Trio,
vocal by Nick Reynolds,
later covered by Sinatra:
vintage wine, days decreasing.
And now, in Brooklyn
(I’ve lived life backwards:
Florida, Manhattan, Brooklyn),
an older voice whispers
gently, to my gentile ears,
L’shanah tovah.
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