41. American Life in Poetry: Column 229

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

For over forty years, Mark Vinz, of Moorhead, Minnesota—poet, teacher, publisher—has been a prominent advocate for the literature of the Upper Great Plains. Here’s a recent poem that speaks to growing older.

Cautionary Tales

Beyond the field of grazing, gazing cows

the great bull has a pasture to himself,

monumental, black flanks barely twitching

from the swarming flies. Only a few strands of

wire separate us—how could I forget

my childhood terror, the grownups warning

that the old bull near my uncle’s farm

would love to chase me, stomp me, gore me

if I ever got too close. And so I

skirted acres just to keep my distance,

peeking through the leaves to see if he still

was watching me, waiting for some foolish move—

those fierce red eyes, the thunder in the ground—

or maybe that was simply nightmares. It’s

getting hard to tell, as years themselves keep

gaining ground relentlessly, their hot breath

on my back, and not a fence in sight.