WINTER ' FOURTEEN
-but I don’t always know what the beginning is
-does it matter? We are water, we are flowing
-I always admired the Greek in you
-it’s a question, a matter of fidelity
-to what?
-to what and to everything
-I still don’t know where to begin
-choose any point, select any junction, pick a face out of a crowd and begin to speculate
-easier said than done
-but speech is not always easy. Complicated thing. Past and present and future tense available to you
and you only have to choose
-but I can’t
-but you can
-and must I because I can?
-you must.
Must I? what is ‘must’ and what is ‘I’ that I should be answerable to them? From what pit do these
questions arise with an authority that is difficult to refute. I refute or I accept but the questions remain
regardless of my wishes or decisions. I am subject to I. there is no refutation of the self that is total. Even
death can be a choice at a particular junction. There is no other world and this is it.
And not to be unto them what they would have me be.
Nor at their shrines to kneel as if a believer of their arguments.
I am other than they. This cannot be denied. I will not deny it and neither will they though they seek
to undo me daily.
I was weaned at a different nipple. I have drunk other milk.
Not yet of paradise but that will come to pass or a total damnation will cover me. Sing of the dark?
I will sing of the dark if needs be, but I will sing.
Listen: my anthems are already upon my lips. I might warn but I will not coheres. Listen: my anthems
are already ringing.
I will sing of no generation but only of the generation that I am. And I will be among them as the
patriarchs were among their peoples.
I the burnishing and I the flame.
I onwards and out. Out. Out. Out.
-As a parting shot, tell me, if you had to choose an ancestor, who would it be: Adam or Antigone?
The present is always on the verge of the past. Time is always on the verge of goodbye but I haven’t said
it. Will do of course. Can’t stay here. No room for my soul’s forging.
That’s the nub.
Becoming. Being. All else is secondary. Not worth thinking about. Won’t think about it.
Down this street into the future. What meetings, what conversations await? I will not be guided. No is
the equal, and superior, of yes in certain circumstances and pronunciations.
The Linnet's Wings