To be old and white
and not ashamed to walk in the rain with a black umbrella,
to be obviously painted in white
like an old-fashioned mill,

so white that even the white cherry petals are
too heavy for the crown of your head
Such as you look out of place
compared with other people, with the red cars, with the rain
breathed into children’s nostrils

you keep on walking, wise like a tin toy drummer,
bringing to life the whole orchestra,
waking up those who believed they were awake,
you are the white of the paper
upon which the world wrote a masterpiece
and erased it