An Old Man In Waking Dreams

Spring then too, always, the first truly balmy times,

Then off in solitary striding into discoveries, rocks, strange

Plants, stranger sounds, in solitary satisfaction, being whatever

I would like in the true learning, as it went on and continued

Spring even now, ancient really, and suddenly recall its stopping.

You plucked my I from me and crumpled it and matted it so

That it was heaved inside THEM, plausible, placid and regular.

And so now still then, in times, as the mind drifts even more and

Takes itself to places it forgot it knows with a flash so thoughtless it seems

A refreshment, an original, from a languid time, perhaps, or not, no

Matter, because this drift can become a mastery, a more than it can seem.

And as the drift wanders on some rocks and plants and sounds recollect,

Reconsider, even rejoice at the slightest glimmer, that time that the I had

Its dandiest something else, to wonder at, to wonder more—

But now

As then

Maybe I was THEM even then, on the meanderings

Among the lilacs, the dank, dirty banks along the canoeing creek,

Boulders mounting high along the endlines of the neighborhood,

Scaling support struts and splinters on outdoor advertisings,

In all that heroism alone I could not see

That I had been plucked early into all of it

All my time with all of THEM.