In order to view this poem with the line breaks the author intended, we suggest reading it on a computer screen or in the landscape orientation on your phone or tablet.

Past Sunset
Katharyn Howd Machan

Old man takes his old dog for a stroll
up the sidewalk as cardinals settle
briefly for a neighbor’s black seed,
last eaters in a summer day’s reach.

July has been rich with day lillies’ orange,
beebalm’s full pink attracting wide wings
of butterflies, moths, human eyes eager
for color against what winter days teach.

Me? I’m a woman with age in my hands,
hanging out feeders for feathers to perch
and offer their sounds, their songs of life
giver to giver, each to each.

—
Katharyn Howd Machan, a longtime professor in the Department of Writing at Ithaca College, has served as coordinator of the Ithaca Community Poets and director of the Feminist Women’s Writing Workshops, Inc. Her poems have appeared in numerous magazines, anthologies, textbooks, and collections (most recently Dark Side of the Spoon from The Moonstone Press in 2022 and A Slow Bottle of Wine, winner of the Jessie Bryce Niles Chapbook Competition, from Comstock Writers, Inc. in 2020), and she had edited three thematic works, including Adrienne Rich: A Tribute Anthology with Split Oak Press. For body and spirit, she belly dances.

Know anyone who might appreciate reading Katharyn’s poem?
Why not share the link to this page?

Have you read these poems:
The Joy of Aging by Jeff Schwartz
When He Strolled the Mall by Merrill Oliver Douglas

Table of Contents