Ted Kooser is a two-time US Poet Laureate and the author of numerous poetry collections, including Delights & Shadows, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry; Splitting an Order; Kindest Regards; and Cotton Candy (2022). As Poet Laureate he created “American Life in Poetry,” a free weekly column for newspapers, featuring a poem by a contemporary American writer. Born in Ames, Iowa, Kooser is a former vice president of Lincoln Benefit Life, where he worked as an insurance representative for many years. He is Presidential Professor Emeritus at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.

Photograph by Matt Valentine.

An Old Sidewalk

by Ted Kooser

THE PASSING YEARS have broken it

over the knees of tree roots,
those of great maples raining shade,
and of crippled elms whose leaves
in August turn to a lace that sifts
the heat. And the breaks have filled
with mold from which frail seedlings,
already with bark like their parents,
hold up green banners of hope.


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