An Old Man

American Poetry Review, The, Jan/Feb 2004 by Cavafy, Constantine

In the middle of the noisy cafe,

hunched over a table, sits an old man,

a newspaper in front of him, and no company.

Wretched with despised old age,

he ponders how little he enjoyed the years

when he had strength and eloquence and beauty.

he knows how much heart's aged: he feels it, he sees it.

And yet the time when he was young seems

like yesterday. How brief a time, how brief a time.

And he reflects how Discretion deceived him;

and how he always trusted it "what madness!"

he trusted the liar who said: "Tomorrow. You have plenty of time."

He recalls passions he restrained, and how much

joy he sacrificed. Now for every lost chance,

he scoffs at his reckless Discretion.

But so much thinking and remembering

has made the old man dizzy. He falls asleep

bent over, resting on the cafe table.

CONSTANTINE CAVAFY (1863-1933) was an Alexandrian Creek poet whose work was championed by T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound.

ALIKI BARNSTONE'S books include Wild With It (Sheep Meadow Press, 2002) and Madly In Love (Carnegie-Mellon University Press, 1997).