La Trentiesme De Mon Eage

Carolyn Pyfrom, "Now We See Through a Glass Darkly"

La Trentiesme De Mon Eage

And I have come upon this place

By lost ways, by a nod, by words,

By faces, by an old man's face

At Morlaix lifted to the birds,

By hands upon the tablecloth

At Aldebori's, by the thin

Child's hands that opened to the moth

And let the flutter of the moonlight in,

By hands, by voices, by the voice

Of Mrs. Whitman on the stair,

By Margaret's 'If we had the choice

To choose or not - 'through her thick hair,

By voices, by the creak and fall

Of footsteps on the upper floor,

By silence waiting in the hall

Between the doorbell and the door,

By words, by voices, a lost way - ,

And here above the chimney stack

The unknown constellations sway -

And by what way shall I go back? 

Archibald Macleish

I wrote this poem down so many years ago, read and re-read it, and only today did I bother to find out what the title means. (Something to the effect of "the thirtieth year of my life".) Which is interesting, because it gives it a slightly different slant than what I had in mind all this time. I was thinking more of all the tiny details that lead us along, the seemingly random choices and conversations overheard, or by things not heard and not known - all these bringing us to the person, place and moment we are now in. But today, I found out what the title means, and it adds an element of inner reflection to the outward circumstances. I puzzled and puzzled over what image to pair the poem with, and ended up with yet another self-portrait, this time reflected in a mirror.