If thedead years could shake their skinny legs and run
(symbolism: dead years-old age)
As once he had circled this house in thirty counts,He would go thru this door among these old friends and they would not shunHim and the tales he would tell, tales that would bear more than the spareTestimony of willed wit and his grey hairs
(symbolism, grey hair-old age)
He would enter among them, the fatted meat about his mouth,As he told of how he had lived on strange boats on strange watersOf strategems with lean sly winds,Of the times death went coughing like a sick man on the motors,
(simile, death compared to a sick man)
Their breaths would rise hot and pungent as the lemon rinds
(simile, breaths compared to lemonrinds)
In their cups and sniff at the odorsOf his past like dogs at dried bones behind a hedge,
(simile, past is compared to dogs...)
And he would live in the whispers and locked heads.Wheeling around and around and turning back was where he started:The turn to the pasture, a swift streak under a boy's running;The swing, up a few times and he had all the earth he wanted;The tower trees, and not so tall as he had imagined;The rocking chair on the porch, you pushed it and it started rocking,Rocking, and abrubtly stopped.
(imagery-memory of youth stopped abruptly by time)
He, too, stopped in the doorway, chagrined.He would go among them but he would not tell, he could be smart,He, an old man cracking bones of his embarrassment apart.
