Linda Pastan is a poet I hadn’t read much before I installed the poetry box, but it turns out she is a master at the kind of small, detailed, poignant poems that fit well in an acrylic window on the curb. This poem is from a book she published at age 84—she’s published two since then—a collection that wrestles with living and aging and what we think about in those quiet, middle-of-the-night moments when we find ourselves awake.
“Why not
live each day as if it were the first—
all raw astonishment”
