Sans razors, glues, dyes, and tweezers, we have
brushed aside vanity’s simpler appeasers—yet if
we are being honest, vanishing into the self-shorn
multitude has never, for us, posed a temptation.
Passing time-swept manes and leonine graces,
marvelous whiskers on self-assured faces, we have
nodded betimes in collegial greeting. Our own
preenings have concerned taste, knowledge, and
letters—subtler objects, perhaps, but nonetheless
fetters—where distinguishing oneself from the
crowd may have come to seem an end. Now you
have arrived, venerable and white, we must own
that our accomplishments are chagriningly slight—
so welcome friend, to our life’s humbler next act. 

_____
Nihal Singh