Carl Dennis, "Birthday"

 Now that the time remaining is insubstantial,
I need to review my history while asking
What exactly it suggests I've lived for,
What pleasures or duties, what moods
Of brief elation or extended calm.

To expect a meaning deeper than that,
To believe in a purpose beyond my own
Furthered by me all along without my knowing,
Is to warm myself at a fire painted on canvas.

If I want the company of the nonexistent,
I'm better off with the crowd of shadows who lost
Their only chance to escape the darkness
On the night I happened to be conceived.

I wonder how many of them would have felt more lucky
With the family allotted me than I did, more pleased
With the neighborhood. So many chances for them
To go out and investigate, in streets that often bored me,
Rumors that the beautiful had been sighted locally.

The sassafras tree in the lot behind the shoe store
Might have been mentioned by some,
Or the straight-backed, white-haired woman
Waiting for the bus in the rain at Main and Biddle.

Even the bowl of cherries she left in her kitchen
Is worth their regard, a bowl they might have painted
In a rush of sympathy for objects small and frail,

Insubstantial and insignificant, or a rush of awe
At how ready the cherries and the bowl appear
To give themselves to the light that's left them,
With nothing held in reserve for a better day.

Carl Dennis

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