World the Way It Is

WHEN I was a thin ten years old, world was not green,
Not good, yet seemed all a holiday, snow forts and summer.
Saturdays were long then, and my brother’s dog called Bill,
When he was run over, broke our hearts both with absence.
I would have said newspapers then made good reading,
Not like news now, the Jews driven, the peace no peace,
Murders civil and military, the dirtiness, the news.

My father must have known it. Evening after evening he sat
With the real world for his dinner. My father must have
Thought badly of Christmas trees in nineteen-sixteen.
My son is ten now, I am my father, the world not green,
Not good. But baseball is the world, only school clouds
His endless sky. There are birthdays and Christmas trees.
The only difference is he has no brother who has no dog.

I feel evil everywhere, ruthless, more and more terrible.
The greater hates are further, the small nearer and worse.
I go to sleep despairing, and wake in the sunlight afraid.
Nothing is what it seems, little lasts, loving-kindness
Is an isolated curiosity. Carrying my care with me to table,
I sit down evening after evening with my son to his meal,
Telling him nothing. How may I? And now I have no father.
I make the holidays. I buy baseballs and Christmas trees.