How comforting 
To hear their voices
In the other room.  Here,

In the den, my fortnight lair,
Penelope’s soothing tones
And her mother’s frantic

Replies are mercifully muffled.
Though I know friction ensues
To my ancient ears all is smooth.

I put Brahms’ Lullaby on my earphones:
So simple, a kind of heavenly
Humanness in purest form,

Like the rhythmic sound of water
Dripping on stone.  I think
Of Penelope’s condition

And the world’s condition
Into which she brings this gift.
I feel for her naive self

And her mother’s weary worry,
But what is life for
If not to be lived?