Narcissus
You could read those journals as Iíve done
and construct a room from them
across which you'd reach for the young man
I was then and take him in & on.
And the years themselves are a room
even smaller than you'd think.
Who I was and who I've become
seems all there is to thirty years.
The time betweenís obliterated while the polarities
beam in the darkness of memory.It's a summer much the same as this.
He takes to it as though continuous heat
were bliss. His real distress is beneath the skin
as it always is I guess. But the difference
is in his liveliness. He rises each day
to his life. He emerges from sleep and purposefully
engages the oracles of street or sand or sky
whose male or female forms translate
the dreams he has of life & death
in the everyday he retrieves from eternity.
He does this day after day.
And calls it life.Been swimming? I might ask him
as if it wasn't obvious from the salt-rings on his pants
or the sand between his toes. Yes he says:
This morning 1 was suddenly out of my depth and fighting
against a ridge of water which hadnít been there before
when I splashed out a cricket-pitch's length from the shore
and then floated on my back into a cloudless sky
which was like a continuation of such a thought as
St. Exupery's 'praying for a miracle
that should change the course of the afternoon.'All I can say is yes
please tell me more. Remind me.
I don't need a skinful to appreciate your story:
Iíll follow your spoor as you change from chair to chair
or wander down the hall pressing hot body
to the cool plaster & tiles.
Perspire me truth's elixir.
And when I cry I love you
know then the end-of-the-line's transcended.
Touché! my young man says. Weíre a match!
Deep in his eye I see myself.
Iím touched. Thimble & thumb.
Oh yeah! I say. Great world! Great circle of sun!
Great sun! Great song!
Great one!
