The Summer One Read Ulysses

.

To scale those peaks
of aspiration and
endeavour, a young
fool from Nowhere,
jug eared, bare
crewcut head aslant
as if not quite
getting it, life,
Independence
Day, nineteen
fifty eight,
on a wooden pier
by a lake, or in
another photo long
lost like everything else,
standing askance
beneath tall trees,
no one home,
singular, alone
at her cottage in
the woods,
the summer
one
read Ulysses.




Morning mist on Lake Mapourika, New Zealand: photo by Richard Palmer, 2004