when you were young you got a tattoo
in a secret place, for priveleged few
who'd see you nude; and now in silence
we regard your youth as a mistake.
you were never young, as i was, love
and child-fear never, i suppose,
drove your small body up to tree-top
security; now you and me and
buses on their routes blow blue-gray smoke
into a clear fall afternoon. when
did these many adult sins begin,
so driving out your wide-eyed child self
to such dark-driving fascination?
in what early year did you so fall,
and rise--thus? for i still live in trees:
now they, too, in me: my secret muse.
i never did grow up; and so i
vindicate my innocent childhood
faith in peter Pan--old nature-god
as scruffian-youth, whose dirty sprigs
press ever up, up! through hardened soil--
so! shall i ever, while hope remains.
youth is for remembering, and i,
truly as can be remembered, was
once a youth, unwasted, forever.
despite your many advantages,
cynicisms, and my own defeat,
my hope shall never die while i might
yet, with child-fear in tops of trees, find
strength in that which dies, and is reborn.
sept 2010
