Paxton

I ran across this poem buried in my Google Docs and I have no memory of writing it.  It's strange.  I found myself reading it as if someone else wrote it.  I know it's mine--I checked the edits.  I wrote it on September 8, 2019. ( I hope the man of 2019 doesn't mind the edits of the man of 2023 prepping it for this blog) I cannot tell who or what is the object of the speaker's apostrophe.  Who is the you? I don't know.  I have imbibed of the the waters of the Lethe while yet living--a sign of things to come if I follow my parents footsteps.  No matter.  Coming into existence eventually no longer depends on memories stored in the time-space brain which decays at death.  The poem, like me, is not worth remembering.  We are breaths--breaths of life.  We fill a body, we leave a body.  I have peace with that.  

Compulsion

Just what it is,

I do not know,

That draws me to you.

A bright star? 

But it is not your gravity.

A wondrous wind?

 I have no sail.

A swift river? 

I am a rock.

How is it that you move me to you?

You have beauty, truly you do, but it will not last.

Nothing ever lasts, my dear, as I know you know.

You have charm, but it too will be lost to the grave.

As will your sultry voice,

Your sharp eyes,

Your clever wit and wise words,

But Compulsion, you draw me

Beyond all these things

Unnamed, ineffable

To a land were words are no use at all

And unneeded.

That land where we dwell--truly dwell--as one

Is forever or never forevernever fornever.

But what it is, I do not know.

Not with the tongue,

The nose,

The eye,

The ear,

Not with the body that is but momentary smoke,

Or even the mind,

But I am at peace with the unknowing;

I will simply drift,

Without question,

To you.