When I was 23 and read Auden for the first time, an older poet friend was surprised I liked him. “I think you have to be older to really appreciate him.” I reread “As I Walked Out One Evening” regularly and find different reasons to appreciate him. Before it was his sarcasm, the promise of salmon singing in the street. Now it’s the endurance. I think I might be old enough now to appreciate F. Scott Fitzgerald, the sad determination of boats beating back against the current.

[for George]