Rue

For what I did

And did not do

And do without

In my old age

Rue, not rage

Against that night

We go into,

Sets me straight

On what to do

Before I die—

Sit in the shade,

Look at the sky

(via Poetry Foundation's Poem of the Day podcast; hear it read here)

Samuel Menashe has created many compact and precise

poems. "His art is the jeweller's art."

Born in 1925, he studied biochemistry and after WW2 used

his GI Bill money to study at the Sorbonne, writing a PhD

dissertation "ur l'expérience poétique". He lived in New York

for most of his life, until his death in 2011.

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