The Layers – Stanley Kunitz
I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
“Live in the layers,
not on the litter.”
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.
Poetry
- A Dog Has Died by Pablo Neruda
- A Moment of Silence – by Emmanuel Ortiz
- A Quiet Life – Baron Wormser
- A Wreath to the Fish – Nancy Willard
- Alone – Jack Gilbert
- Crow Blacker Than Ever – Ted Hughes
- Don’t fall in love with a woman who reads – Martha Rivera-Garrido
- Failing and Flying – Jack Gilbert
- Feel Mo – Michael Korson
- Growing Old – Emma Rosenberg
- I Talked to a Lady – Tanya Howden
- If You Knew – Ellen Bass
- Men – Maya Angelou
- my brain and heart divorced ~ john roedel
- Relax – Ellen Bass
- Tangled Up In Blue – Bob Dylan
- The Four Noble Truths – Jake Onami Agnew
- The History of One Tough Motherfucker – Charles Bukowski
- The Layers – Stanley Kunitz
- The Shyness – Sharon Olds
- Tryst with Death – Gina Puorro
- Wage Peace – Mary Oliver
- War Primer – Bertholt Brecht

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