In Someone's Shadow - May 17 Poem

I'll die living in your shadow, my only home.

May 17
By Rod McKuen

I believe that crawling into you
is going back into myself.
That by the act of
joining hands with you
I become more of me.

There are no whiskey bars
for dancers like ourselves,
and so we move into each other
like drunkards into open doorways.

My need for you is near addiction.

No sailor ever had tattoos
growing on his forearm
the way your smile
has willed itself back behind my eyes.

It will not dissolve.
It will not divide.
For I am nothing if not you.

~from:  "In Someone's Shadow", pages 20, 21

~•~•~•~•~

A Birthday Poem by Ted Kooser

Former Rose, ashes now...







A Birthday Poem

This evening, I sat by an open window

and read till the light was gone and the book

was no more than a part of the darkness.

I could easily have switched on a lamp,

but I wanted to ride this day down into night,

to sit alone and smooth the unreadable page

with the pale gray ghost of my hand.



Ted Kooser