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The Rest by Lawrence Raab

By T.

21 January 2006

3.7k

The Rest
Lawrence Raab

You’ve tried the rest.
You’ve waited long enough.
Everything catches up with you.

And you’re too old,
or too young.
Or you don’t have the money

or you don’t have the time.
Maybe you’re shy, and maybe
you’re just afraid.

How often have you heard it,
have you promised
yourself you’d try

something really different
if you had the chance?
Though you can’t help but wonder

if all those people
know what they’re doing, now
you’re saying it with them:

Eventually everything
catches up with us,
and it starts to show.

We’ve waited all our lives, or as long
as we can remember, whichever
is long enough.

MARGINALIA

Cried in the cab all the way to school.

ABOUT LAWRENCE RAAB

Poet and professor Lawrence Raab was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Raab is the author of many collections of poetry, including The Life Beside This One (2017); Mistaking Each Other for Ghosts (2015), which was a finalist for the National Book Award; The History of Forgetting (2009); Visible Signs: New and Selected Poems (2003); and What We Don’t Know About Each Other (1993), selected for the National Poetry Series by Stephen Dunn and a finalist for the National Book Award…. (more)