Like this, Max, not least for the apparent tensions between the speaker and
she who must be in present. I wonder about shames shifted/past shame but
it's a good wonder. Uncrowded now is all right.
Bill
On Thursday, 21 January 2016, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
> This old! -
>
> no wonder
> I live more
> in the Then
> than the Now.
>
> Now - so
> elusive;
> next - so
> unlikely.
>
> This old
> has-been
> knows better
> than to complain -
>
> just keep me
> on standby,
> ye powers that be.
> I’m walking
>
> now somewhat
> steady, alert,
> ready, expecting
> the worst,
>
> confident
> the best
> though past
> lingers still
>
> awhile on call
> or unsummoned
> flooding up
> as if re-lived
>
> old pains even
> revalued
> shames shifted
> past shame
>
> eclipsed strangely
> by gratitude
> to have lived
> and survived
>
> so long amid
> sweets and sours
> feasts and fasts
> sunsets and some
>
> winter dawns,
> long summer days,
> moon’s every phase.
> This fine rain
>
> brings back rains
> finer. Those far-off
> locomotives
> calling now
>
> summon the past
> to re-enter places
> as when new.
> Passers-by glance
>
> at an old man
> holding himself in
> without seeing how
> he’s held together.
>
> Stepping along,
> that old, this old.
> - All this I said to her
> disapproving ear.
>
> She said:
> living in the present -
> nothing’s
> more important!
>
> You don’t have
> to be a has-been,
> doting on
> your past time.
>
> Nostalgia!
> such a weakness…
> a weakening
> pastime.
>
> Memories make
> a deceiving refuge,
> hidey-holes
> for misfits.
>
> Yes, she added,
> much of the past
> we shared, good
> to recall at times -
>
> but here, now,
> together, doesn’t
> all this crowd
> out all the rest?
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