Who am I?
I trod the earth,
My fingers knead the clouds.
I bend my mind into a
Hypotenuse of Pythagoras,
But the proper path to walk is dark
Behind and before
With never a tremor
But a start.

Who am I?

To crucify and
Extort
Dreams and ambitions;

To hew logs from
a toothpick;
To pluck lint from
A threadbare coat;

To sear and smolder
In a fermenting chasm
Of hopeless, tangled
Wishes, ideas
In cemented idolatry;

To touch and caress
A Venus with
A butcher’s touch;
To stand, hats off,
At the door of
daVinci’s Lisa;

To laugh at a tear
And cry at a laugh,
Bonding the wetness with
Ephemeral joy
Into a frozen, burning marker;

To gambol in tinkled glass,
Prancing on the cogs
Of a child’s grass water wheel,
Shining forever into tomorrow,
Lasting only for today;

To stand and stamp my foot
And say, “I will not, will not!”
For the fun of saying it;

And who am I?

To sit on a grassy bank
And ask myself
A thousand unanswerable things?

Who am I?
I clutch a star in one hand,
A clod of dirt in the other.
My step is bounced,
I drag my toes;
My head bends into
Everyone’s favorite shape,
But is pushed back into me.

The road is dark
Before and Behind,
And who am I
To go?