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SATURDAY
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Rod &
Kubby. Photo by Bob Gentry, ©2002 by Stanyan Entertainment Group.
A Thought for Today
Death upon this earth may be only the
shrugging off of a body grown weary, so that the soul can display itself
in a better place.
– from "An Outstretched
Hand"
FROM the¨BOOKS
The four poems published here today come from my newest book, “A Safe
Place to Land,” published in April 2001.
I HAVE LOVED YOU OFTEN
I have loved you often,
though I did not know your name.
And I have heard you singing,
though I never knew
what source the music came from
or what would be the next voice it would take.
Sometimes in evening when the longings came
and I could put no name on them,
no mark of
reference,
I knew that it was you who lit whatever spark
kept the lightning in me jumping and alive.
And you were who and what
I always thought about
whenever I was out of hope and wanting some.
As I settled for the smaller fantasies
I never doubted once
that all the big ones marking time
would
have their time with you.
In the name of patience. In the name of comfort.
In the name of getting through the darkness
every time. You were always hereabouts or there.
And nearly always, in the name of love you came.
Though I never knew from where
and did not know your name.
WHAT FUTURE STIRS THE WORLD’S GREAT HEART
What future
stirs the world's great heart,
that mighty kettle near the flame.
Is it the past, remembered, dim,
or distant futures without name.
What heritage is left for men
who planted seeds at Aragon
and maybe can't go home until
new trees, new seeds sprout up again.
When every tomb has opened out
and freed the angels out of earth,
what then is left to set away
or take on journeys out beyond
or store up for the second birth?
Will beauty still be something rare
if rocks are robbed of every gem
and there is nothing left of
over there.
Go seek religion out of air
and box it in a coffee tin.
What future stirs
the world's great heart--
religion out of air and mist,
some kind of out there in between--
and does the ladle come out clean?
CONFESSION
I am still in love
with everyone I’ve ever loved.
Why negate that first delight,
devotion, affection,
election to love,
even if it ended with recrimination
or convenient quarrel?
Those moments when the sun and
soul collided are as real as the final
parting.
Age often leaves you only memories--
But, oh, what sweet and real recollections.
Love arrives and leaves in its own time,
volition. Wishing will not make it come
or go, enhance reality. As reality will.
Never will a dream in or out of being.
Passion is not tempered or deluded--
mine for you and you and you never was.
Or will be. Know I loved you all the way,
and I have no contrition for how I felt
and feel.
Thank you for the arms and eyes
that never wavered.
Mine matched yours.
Tomorrow (as we do on every Sunday) we’ll begin the closing month of the
year with a flight from the past. Sleep warm.
RM 11/27/2002 6:15 PM
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posted November 25.
ROD McKUEN
CONCERTS & APPEARANCES
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St.
Andrews Day (UK)
Shirley Chisolm o
Winston Churchill o
Dick Clark o
Richard Crenna o
Jack Ging o
Robert Guillaume o
Abbie Hoffman o
Billy Idol o Bo
Jackson o G.
Gordon Liddy o
Radu Lupu o
David Mamet o
Virginia Mayo o
Shuggie Otis o
Gordon Parks o
Mandy Patinkin o
Allan Sherman o
Ben Stiller o
Noel Paul Stookey o
Jonathan Swift o
Mark Twain o
Walter Weller o
Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. |
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It's not the camera lying, only the friend who sees the picture.
If our past actions and mistakes don’t
provide lessons for the future, what will?
Privacy is paramount to peace.
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AGE IS BETTER |
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I have been
young,
a
fresh-faced sprout,
with agile legs, a muscled arm, and smile wide enough
to charm the world I went through
in a rush to get a little
older, sooner.
Catching my reflection while passing past
a looking glass not long ago,
I discovered I was older, even old. There was
no sudden melancholy or regret, and yet
some sadness in the wonder that it happened
while I wasn’t watching.
No pause to proudly ply
the autumn into winter process.
Imagine.
Nothing changed.
I run as fast. I think a little faster
and yet forget at times what I went after
there as I left here to get it.
This while crossing half a room,
not half a lifetime.
So I’ve been young and I’ve been old and have
determined age is better.
Youth unfolds like coy Cleopatra from a rug
spilling all its golden wonders at the foot of age
who seems to envy everything, especially spring.
The young
pledge anything to get an audience. Delivering
sometimes, most times not, on their way before
the promissory note comes due.
Can you blame them as they hurry off, afraid
another runner may beat them to The Score ahead,
leaving nothing to be scored?
Age is ofttimes bitter, feeling in its failing
health that wealth of life eluded it. Apologize somebody or
something for leaving me to find the way I never
found or could not find because it was not there
or never was.
But having seen the surge of youth, the sag of age
in breast and chest and everything, I still say spring
is overrated. Age is better.
Less is expected of the once firm chest that drags
a little lower, the robust voice reduced to murmur
speaking slower.
Age can finally say aloud what it really feels and
thinks in after-dinner
company or crowd.
No one
blinks. If they do, no matter.
Age erases pretense, replacing it with honesty.
Age is proof you got from there to here.
Alas, so many that you loved
did not complete the journey. You mourn them, yes,
and always will, but age is such a triumph over youth,
again, because you moved across the years to here.
Leaving there where it belongs
for youth to come along and rediscover.
-from “A Safe Place to Land,” 2001 |
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