What Symbol Is That?

What is that symbol? What can all this mean?
Is life an appetite, or is it stark
And meaningless, with neither form nor spark?
Will we encounter spirits on the green,
Or will the unmoored sprites remain unseen?
I am myself unmoored, like an old shark
Who cannot rest. Could I cure ash-tree bark
And make a journal? I was once sixteen.

When I was fifteen, eighteen, twenty-one,
My heart was full of wonder, but no more.
Life was a meal — I was right on that score —
But meaningless as flowers in a gun.
I had love; riches, too; all done. All done.
What symbol is that? Who cares? Close the door.