239/365 A poem I immediately loved but didn’t begin to understand until recently

You know which poem of which I speak. It’s probably the most quoted poem in English — or at least one of them…

“In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo”

“Do I dare to eat a peach?”

“I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.”

“I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;”

“Let us go then, you and I”

It wasn’t until I became self-conscious of doing things that seemed more fitting for younger people (eating messy peaches, rolling up pant legs and walking on a beach) that I could identify with this narrator.

One day not long ago, looking at my coffee spoon on a napkin I thought, this morning is just like yesterday morning and tomorrow morning will be just like this morning and the mornings before that.

Of course the Atlantic has a different take: When T.S. Eliot Invented the Hipster

And here Monica Lewinsky has written an Ode to the poem in Variety: Monica Lewinsky: My Love Song to J. Alfred Prufrock

So perhaps I don’t understand this poem at all!