Tuesday poem #185 : George Stanley : To a Young Voter

I can't take politics seriously, at 82
I'm too preoccupied with my own

mortality.  But I can go 'meta' -
I can take your taking politics seriously

seriously.  I know, intellectually,
if your party wins the next election,
the new government will raise

taxes on the rich, lower
taxes on the poor, set a price for carbon,
save the children, save the aquifers -

even the rich will feel they are happier.

So I take very seriously
your taking politics seriously,

notwithstanding my mortality.

 

George Stanley [photo credit: Cath Morris] is a third-generation American modernist poet taken refuge among second-generation Canadian modernists.

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan