Hasn’t she heard this before?
And how many times
Out of how many tales
from dusty waiting rooms,
has it been?
Because - after all -
aren’t we all
waiting?
But the fates had been kind to her
in ways that easily showed
When they looked back,
and how often they did look back
When she has passed by
…
Still, something I never told her
- lord knows how much I did tell –
You see, under the sunset flash
of those eyes,
too deep and too green
to bring my own timid pair
to meet
I hadn’t yet known
And so she taught me,
without knowing herself
Then again, how much
of what we teach
is ever just what we know?
What she taught me,
(in any case) was simply this:
that beauty is not a virtue.
And that kindness is its own wisdom
Is this so strange?
Because beauty is the gift
we are given,
(or not)
wrapped up on our birthday
To Be (or not)
And that is all.
And so, her virtue was not
to be beautiful (which she was)
But to be Kind
Now do you see?
That all amid the daily petty tax,
The crush of humanity,
Wanting to bless itself
with her favors
She sat there, a patient monk,
and anointed all her tired pilgrims
with a smile
And there, in that relentless beauty
she shared with us
her true virtue
Of being Kind
And so, there we met, in the dusty remnant
of what little desert shade remained,
Where she graced this tired traveler with
what she could offer:
The span of an hour,
those earnest questions,
that attentive ear,
And yes, her smile
Where in her patience,
she heard my lament
– and I do have one –
Which was just this:
As I have paused
in this seeming careless stroll of life
To remember what I have been
Yes, that now-sweet citrus, jasmine
and whatnot memory
of the world still-new
And found it,
farther in the distance
than I had last remembered
And looking back
the way they look back
when she passes,
I have felt the sweet regret of poets
of Byron and Sappho
Glimpsing my youth
for the first time
as a thing from afar.
It is a sorrowful thing, but a beautiful sorrow
A worthy chestnut for The Poet
To brood over and stir in the fire
while searching for yet another portrait,
A warm and soothing phrase
with which to comfort our human condition
But this sorrow is not my complaint
Not yet.
You see, I have sat by that fire,
warmed myself over its low heat
and poked among the coals
To discover this:
That when I grasped for words
to stem or hallow this great injustice
of frailty, of impermanence,
I could find none of my own
There is nothing I feel
in the withering of limbs
That hasn’t been felt – and told -
by hearts more beautiful
more wise
or more tragic
than mine
Yes, it has all been felt and said before
And this is my lament
If – somehow – I were
the first to find the weary end
to this dusty road of age
and spent youth
I do believe I could embrace it
With joy
If – somehow – I were
to discover some new truth
in the travesty of sad decline
I know I would welcome it
and gladly
I could live, if only to tell,
to bring some brave new vision
Like an explorer in his chronicle,
scratching out wonders
of the cruel land
from which he won’t return
Entrusting in a cairn of words
the journal they will bury with him
I could do this, I swear I could
But the greater cruelty is this:
That I am no explorer.
That in my wearying, I merely tread
the deep and narrow rut,
Steps all humanity has walked before me
No explorer - hardly; a mere one-way tourist
With postcards and stories
no one hasn’t tired of
What words I have to tell this journey
are only borrowed
From Byron, Shelley, Keats
And those who have been quoted
- and forgotten -
as many times as waves have lapped
at the distant, unknowing shore
So this I give her, my lament.
And to this she gives her gift, her smile
To this ragged tangle of sorrows
under the desert sky
Who, it seems,
laments only that he has lived
While claiming to love life so dearly
And to this she gives her wisdom
And to this she asks:
Is the only joy of a kiss
that you will be remembered for it?
[Based on a conversation I had with a young woman (whose playa name was Cornflower) stranded out at the airport at Burning Man one dusty afternoon. Apologies if this comes across as maudlin - especially from a mere 46-year old! It's not meant to be. I've tried to fold in the retrospective irony of the conversation, along with the poetic inside joke, that (just maybe) this lament is in fact one that hasn't been captured by Byron et al]