Hello again, readers. Sorry it’s been awhile. This first post of June also happens to be my 200th post on this humble poetry blog. So in honor of that nicely rounded, seemingly significant number, I thought I’d re-post the Stanley Kunitz (1905-2006) poem that inspired the name of this blog in the first place.
I like to dig up this piece during turning points and find that each reading offers something new, a different layer if you will. Tonight, the poem’s nimbus-clouded voice reminds me of the difficulty, and the necessity, of living deeply–of moving forward while remaining anchored, of collecting each obstacle as a precious stone of experience, of loving people who are also perpetually changing…
The Layers
I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
“Live in the layers,
not on the litter.”
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written,
I am not done with my changes.
live in the layers 