15 YEARS OF AGE?
WHAT'S IT LIKE?
Poem for Today - January 24, 2014
FIFTEEN
South of the bridge on Seventeenth
I found back of the willows one
summer
day a motorcycle with engine running
as it lay on its side, ticking over
slowly in the high grass. I was
fifteen.
I admired all that pulsing gleam,
the
shiny flanks, the demure headlights
fringed where it lay; I led it
gently
to the road and stood with that
companion, ready and friendly. I was
fifteen.
We could find the end of a road,
meet
the sky on out Seventeenth. I
thought about
hills, and patting the handle got
back a
confident opinion. On the bridge we
indulged
a forward feeling, a tremble. I was
fifteen.
Thinking, back farther in the grass
I found
the owner, just coming to, where he
had flipped
over the raiI. He had bIood on his
hand, was paIe --
I helped him walk to his machine. He
ran his hand
over it, called me good man, roared
away.
I stood there, fifteen.
- William Stafford ©
“Fifteen” by William Stafford:
from
The Rescued Year
by William Stafford.
Copyright 1964
by William E. Stafford.
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