David Young

David Young (1936- ) was born in Davenport, Iowa. He earned a BA from Carleton College, and an MA and PhD from Yale University. He is the author of several collections of poetry and numerous volumes of translation.

His honors include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Ohio Arts Council. He has been the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, the Cleveland Arts Prize, and a Witter Bynner Translation Fellowship.

Mother's Day

—for my children

I see her doing something simple, paying bills,

or leafing through a magazine or book,

and wish that I could say, and she could hear,

that now I start to understand her love

for all of us, the fullness of it.

It burns there in the past, beyond my reach,

a modest lamp.

— D. Nurkse