The Ultralarge

It seems that I’ve attained an age

Distinguished for sagacity,

But how on earth, in all the world,

Might wisdom yet adorn a sage?

The Ultralarge spells dearth to me.

The only place I wish to go—the

piccolo mondo antico,

I left behind—in Seventy-Two??*

Oh, then, I all too little knew!

Those others all knew little, too.

The Ultralarge was growing fast.

Rough winds around its focus whirled.

The mind's umbrella, tightly furled,

Could not perk up the dying past.

*Antonio Fogazzaro’s 1895 novel Piccolo mondo antico, "Little Old World,” was filmed in 1941, directed by Mario Soldati (1906–1999), who, when I knew him in Berkeley in the 1970s, kindly imagined that I might one day be a poet.

#PiccoloMondoAntico trovi sempre quel che cerchi!

Sunday, August 3, 2025