It’s not your world,
so stop complaining, you.
Sometimes, yes,
I call myself “you”.
affectionately.
You,
Stop!
(Nobody but me
has the authority
to stop my complaining.)
Other times I
refer to myself as “we”,
as in,
It’s not our world. . .
(We’re so tired
of having to explain ourselves! )
I don’t know what is normal
anymore. Or useful
or an effective way
of getting across to myself.
Right now what I am working on
is censoring old songs
that I (or we)
are forever singing
to myselves.
These songs date back
to a time when I was little
and my mother was always
humming or whistling or singing
them and many others
that I have forgotten.
When she had Alzheimer’s
I would drive her around
the countryside she loved
singing all these songs
back to her.
She joined in.
But now that she is gone
these songs don’t speak to me;
they just are.
They sing
themselves back to me!
I might be stacking wood
and I snap,
Shut up!
as if to a teenager
with radio blaring.
And another thing
I, we
are working on
is trying not to be so disappointed
with the human race.
Today I emailed my brother:
Lately I feel like
I am surrounded by idiots.
He, wisely, did not respond.
Why would he?
If it’s true,
he can’t do anything to help me.
And if it isn’t true,
he would just assume
that I am having a bad day,
Which I am.
But even when I am not
having a bad day
I’m still surrounded by idiots!
But today I realized something
that startled me.
Some of the idiots surrounding me
are much smarter than me.
Allow me to explain:
They, for the most part,
do not read or think that much.
Or what they read and think about
doesn’t seem to
make them any smarter.
And yet they are
much more resilient than I,
and, by all indications,
happier.
And here is the clincher –
These idiots are much better adapted
to the same depressing world
that drives me crazy!
So, they are either much smarter than me
or they have discovered
something better than intelligence.
They have found a way to carry on
(albeit, as idiots)
without worrying about
the existential ax
hanging over our heads.
So, where does that leave you?
I ask us (me, myself, I
and my soul,
and the many others who hang out
with plural me.)
We don’t know.
If you don’t know,
I don’t know,
and we will just have to wait.
Just trust that some day
all will be revealed to us,
you assure me.
Your assurance brings us together,
makes me one.
Sometimes we all agree,
but hardly ever
and never
on how to end a poem.