Cornflower's Gift

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]