Old Man's Eagle Mind Poem by gershon hepner

An old man’s eagle mind
remembered by mankind,
for it like tigers burned
throughout the night, though spurned
by God whom he offended
before his life had ended.
He beat upon the rock,
with words he knew would shock
his people, leader who
had no intent to woo
weak sisters lacking faith.
When he said, “Thus God saith, ”
he framed an old man’s frenzy,
and in his last cadenza
declared the blood of nations
the price of depredations
God will avenge. No human
with similar acumen
has led and loved; he lies
concealed from human eyes.
God did not guard him from
his words said with aplomb,
thought in a marrow-bone,
and so he ranged alone,
unburied by the twelve
tribe leaders-none would delve
for him a grave; the sod
was dug for him by God.

Inspired in part by Yeats’s lines, after hearing Peter O’Toole tell Charlie Rose that he must continue working in old age—he is about to appear in “The Tudors” as Pope Paul III though his favorite recent part was that of Anton Ego in Ratarouille. “Myself I must remake, ” he said:
Grant me an old man's frenzy,
Myself must I remake
Till I am Timon and Lear
Or that William Blake
Who beat upon the wall
Till Truth obeyed his call;

A mind Michael Angelo knew
That can pierce the clouds,
Or inspired by frenzy
Shake the dead in their shrouds;
Forgotten else by mankind,
An old man's eagle mind...
I also quote from these lines of Yeats:
God guard me from those thoughts men think
In the mind alone;
He that sings a lasting song
Thinks in a marrow-bone.


3/25/08