Ode to Jacque Barzan
Ode to Jacque Barzun
Keyvan Tabari
Copyright Keyvan Tabari 2021. All Rights Reserved.
Like the petals of the azaleas in my yard,
I am alert to the detritus fast cumulating
Of the pundits at my sight.
Willy Brown has stopped pontificating
And Mark Shields has called it quits
On reminiscing the bygone.
The Times today
Reviews my favorite essayist Joan Didion’s last.
“Nearly every piece in the collection
Contains some mention of flowers,”
The viewer says,
Of Didion’s “Let Me Tell You What I Mean.”
And those pieces are all from more than 20 years ago.
At eighty-two and a half, I too am dated.
I have to read her online; the eyesight fails the print.
And I now binge on watching TV.
Me, who only watched returns of Seinfeld,
And that show only occasionally,
Now am hooked by Grace and Frankie.
Three episodes a night!
I tell my daughters and they say, toleratingly,
“Yes Dad, but those are not for our age.”
Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin, the actors, are my age.
And the characters they play
Are also at the threshold of “assisted living”.
Like them, I have resolved on persisting.
My signpost is Jacque Barzun
Who finished his “From Dawn to Decadence”
At the age of three past nine.
(January 26, 2021)
Collected Works of Keyvan Tabari 