I have no sense of age, though I have
memories of events now history,
I have no lack of youth, no lack of
spontaneous passion, desire, attachment, folly.
I am kinder, wiser, gentler, but
sometimes just as cruel and unthinking as ever I was.
I can see the different levels of
maturity within myself and others, and yet
they do not correspond to calendar
years, but to upbringing, hardship,
apology and forgiveness: I still
blunder about the world, as weak as ever I was,
I still rage about the world, as torn
by tyranny and suffering
as when I fought for student rights in
the shadows of the 60s,
when the apathy of the 70s could still
be stirred
with reminders of what had nearly been
accomplished, what was still possible.
I am no less sensual or sexual or
political or emotional, but no more rational, though
I am more spiritual. I still believe
there is a well of hope so deep in me
that if I ever found a way to unleash
its waters the thirsting world
would know hope forever. My despair I
only once discovered was an aquifer
running beneath humanity and into which
I would vanish like a drop
if I ever fell in. I want revolution,
revelation and the evolution of the species.
Long ago, I chose love instead of
wisdom, chose my heart at the expense
of my mind, and left a wake of ruin as
I staggered from care to care, passion to passion,
lust to lust, shared suffering to
shared suffering, a holy fool of yearning,
in the wilderness of redemption songs,
on the outskirts of a justly shattered religion,
dancing before the covenant arc of my
life, drunk or sober, stoned or straight,
burning my life in the refining fire of
human limitation, an argent dream
consuming the river of human suffering
beneath our corrupt societies,
always seeking the distillation of
myself into something useful,
a javelin to be flung into the heart of
the beast
that ravages humanity,
when all the love and life and yearning
is said and done.
