Apathy is a developing response.
Ask the young what should be done about some ‘X’
and they will answer with a certainty admired
by falling rocks which don’t so straightly plumb
the depths as do the certainties of youth.

In middle age, amongst their bouts of rage,
the folk, perplexed by living the long riddle
they call their lives, will entertain first doubts
about positions they once firmly held.
And then they’ll hold them tighter, fear letting loose

and a fall into ‘senescence’ — as we call
that acceptance Buddha lauds and Calvin hates,
where the answer to what one’s required to do
engenders daily less hot animo
and more and more a careless ‘I don’t know.’