The Painted Bed Poems Author:Donald Hall Affirmation — To grow old is to lose everything. — Aging, everybody knows it. — Even when we are young, — we glimpse it sometimes, and nod our heads — when a grandfather dies. — Then we row for years on the midsummer — pond, ignorant and content. But a marriage, — that began without harm, scatters — into debris on the shore, — and a friend from school dro... more »ps