The Crow

How do I know me?
Can I count the ways?
No, really,

Can I?

Ups and downs 
and ins and outs…
so many of me
there seem to be
I can hardly 
sort them all
keep them straight
give time
attention
energy
in fair divide…

Who speaks? 
Which one of me
today
is most distraught
determined
driven by a feeling,
by a cause…?

Who of myselves
chooses 
what look to wear today,
what colors
style
fabrics and designs?

Am we bold today?
Or only in the morning–
shy by afternoon
and angry
with the setting sun?

Talk-radio 
or jazz or pop
or Beethoven
as I drive…
Unless I stay at home
fixed to the screen–
the one I fill 
with word and image, 
or mezzed by
the one that simply 
spews at me,
to its own ends
of greed and need
and all the habits of 
established memes…


Biography 
is just the facts,
events recalled,
commented on,
considered,
from a distant place
and through 
the smoke of time.

Poetry 
is the soul
enmeshed in 
brain both right and left,
struggling to bridge
the gap between
the wordless senses
and the linear mind:
to wrap in words
persistant need
of the self
desiring deeply
the intimacy 
of being 
really known
and thereby loved…

Revealing that which intellect
can only analyze
or wit contrive
or nagging voice belabor,
“See
me 
please!”

Crying out in image,
tone and timbre,
broadcasting
pieces of the puzzle
to a world
of readers
players
dancers
do-ers…
but few, 
I fear, 
inclining
to be
puzzle-piecers.

I am one, 
puzzled by the pieces– 
my own 
as much as any–
who works a little 
on this patch
of color or design
that seems to match…
then wanders off
to puzzle out 
this other batch of pieces…
or another, 
or this other one…

like a crow
distracted by each gleam
of every thing
that turns into the light
and for an instant shines…

2008