Even My Company Forsakes Me (for Salvador Quasimodo)

John, my spiritual doppelgänger,

it was nice to know

when you were around.

My sangha brothers and sisters

profusely scattered 

after the change.

At least, I can talk to my brother, 

now that the medicine

allows him to be human.

I've gone to seed...my thoughts

are scattered like electronic

milkweed...who knows if they'll

land on fertile soil? A few new

friends are taking root in my life...

heaven help them; I pre-apologize.

Not even sad...my life is the way

of all lives...nothing special...they

may remember a poem of mine,

but they won't remember me; the

ones that do will also die.

No monuments, please...why

pretend eternity? Sure, use of me

what you can...like weathered 

New England barn wood, use me

to redecorate your minds. I'm worth

at least as much as a few tin cans.

There is, after all, only one poem,

written in so many ways by so many.

There is only one heart we share...

It's time we all know this.

Why else do we save the poems

of those dead a thousand years?

Because there is only one heart, 

one mind, that sees things clearly:

the right one.