Song of One Who Goes On

by David Whyte

Above Manang

What I have left behind
has not left me.
Those I have failed
have not failed me,
and those I have not loved
will love me
even in my worst.

What I have not seen
or failed to see
I leave as a gift.

The lands I have not walked
will offer their paths as I sleep.
This earth I have not loved
will hold me
even as I am laid beneath it.

To everything that is
I give everything I am not.

To the life through which
I have walked blindfold,
I give it in the sight of my weakness.

To life I give thanks for this-
one strength through great failure
with marvelous opportunity for all.

 

 

Other People’s Poetry

No Answer

by Judith Steinbergh

This is the third time this week
I’ve tried calling you
down under the ground.
This has got to stop.
I know you don’t pick up the phone
in fact, there’s no number listed,
but this connection we’ve had for years
first umbilical
lately over the wires is hard to break.
Who else cares about the kids’ first day of school
or my electric bill.
I phone you up in the heavens
but it’s no dice.
I’m not into the afterlife
and your burial pursues me
without mercy,
I know you’re down there
MA
answer me.

 

 

People that Bother Me

1. Adult celebrities that pander to young people. Hey, Gwen Stefani, you’re 40. You’re a mother!! Quit trying to make me believe that you still go clubbing and suffer from teenage melancholy. Any teens reading this, heed my warning: stars like her and Jim Carey host your award shows and dress up like cougars not because they identify with the characters on Twilight, but because they want your parents’ credit numbers. And by the way, what exactly is Gwen selling here?

2. Young people. Of late, I have spent numerous hours at a Starbucks in Scarborough, where teens and young adults tend to congregate, and having been forced to overhear various conversations of these young people, I have come to two conclusions. First, I am an old curmudgeon. Second, that David Bowie is wrong, ‘the children that we spit on’ actually haven’t any idea as to what they’re going through, and are quite clueless in general. Let me put it to you like this, kiddos: if you think you know everything, then you really know nothing at all. And pull your pants up.

3. Single People. When I first saw that Sex and the City episode about the war between couples and singles, though I was in a relationship at the time, I actually sided with Carrie and her crew against those patronizing attached people. Years later, however, I am beginning to understand why all the smugness. Really, who cares if she has muffin-top, or if he picks his nose now and then, quit being picky and just get married already! I’m being harsh, I’m sorry. Now you know why I am grateful to have found someone who can tolerate my cantankerousness. My advice to you is to get an online membership with Lava Life. Yes, yes, I know, David Brent from The Office did it, but really the stigma that accompanied dating services vanished in the 90’s, and look who Brent ended up with (someone very nice and very cute, if you haven’t seen the series). These days, everybody is doing it. And why not? It does all the filtering for you, so you don’t have to waste your time and money waiting until the third date to find out that he has a furry fetish, or that she is a member of the Heritage Front.

4. Young Married People. You, with your nice garden’s and Volvo station wagons and car-sized baby carriages (which are really just big handbags). You’re so healthy and fertile-looking when you jog together. You ooze self-worth. I wanna key your car.

5. Infants. It’s not that I don’t like them or they don’t like me, it’s just that we have nothing to say to one another. When someone puts a newborn in my arms, after about a minute the baby and I exchange looks like, er, are we done now?