THE HIGH ROADS ARE
DREARY BUT THEY
LEAD TO THE TOWN
Man is the manner of all things? While the
coffee brews, the stove top sings, and the
entire run of the kitchen seems useless. I look
out some patterned window from 70 years ago,
and all I see are the rippled edges of an old-man's
glories: names and faiths and paths I used to know.
All I realize now is nothing - I know that I am
nowhere, and just hanging on - a ventricle on
a really bad heart, still beating but not to thrive.
-
It's awkward for men to be on the pinnacle headed
down - the guy over there, with the well-shined
shoes and the ring on his pinkie, he makes me wonder.
He's probably the toast of his very town, Mr. Stockbroker,
high-toned success, the one with the Maserati and the crest,
yet to me he looks like nothing as much as a gay Mr. Peanut.
-
I swing around to watch the girls : yes, they're prime, all
levels and swirls. Shapes and forms beneath those clothes
some textbook artist sweats over, I'm sure. And yet, again,
the toast they order with their teas is soggy. But so what.
I am not them. They are not me, nor he. Mr. Peanut is
separate from me. Something like Martin Buber
from a long time ago. I'll swell the crowd, and I'll
sweat the nut. Eventually something will give.
-
But I can't get up to travel again. No, not now. Although,
yes, these high roads are dreary they do lead to the town.
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