Fifty five trips around the sun held more
Stories than the most gifted storyteller
Could tell, and I was among the least.
Leave no trace, no shallow graves, so go
The slogans of the wilderness visitors,
But none of them really wished to leave
Without a trace. We liked to think we could,
With concentration, make the world
A better place, the way the sea foam wishes
It could leave behind a better wave.
We dreamed we left none but a noble trace.
In any case, I was bound to leave some lines
Behind but hardly any of the kind most of us
Hope to leave or find. And why would I wish
That everyone after me knew I was here
If I’m bound to not know I was here myself?
I remember my lost daughters, lost wife,
Lost parents, siblings, other relatives,
And casually lost acquaintances. They don’t.
They don’t remember me or themselves.
As soon as I’m gone or forget, there will be
No one left to recall the exact appearance
Of my one found daughter’s head crowning
Between her mother’s pinhooked knees.
I know it looked like many other such births,
Like millions, like billions of others. But like
Was never is, is never is, is never the same.
After hours of pushing, her soft skull still
Emerged as a sphere, a theater in the round.
Her eyes were open when I first saw them,
Blue and unfocused, unfinished and being
For the first time something human to see.
I remember so many, many things. Wrong,
Dead wrong, if you say I can’t take them with me.
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