The Path to NOW

 

It begins with the infant, empty and sensing

Only pain and comfort. This is the first me.

Then, when I smile, something happens:

A world appears, and it wants something from me.

 

Smiling gives me something new—I want more.

What I want, I get when I smile.

And, I get something, too, when I cry.

So I cry and I smile. This is wondrous.

 

Pain becomes a thing I do not want,

And comfort comes at times I do not want,

So I cry. And, then I say a word—

And something wondrous happens—they listen!

 

I smile; I cry; I talk; and then I notice

Sometimes they stop listening, and I am angry.

I’m being ignored! They can’t do this—I’m a baby.

I kick and scream and bite and spit to show them.

 

But I grow up and I can see far better ways

To get the things I want.

I become the perfect student to please my mother.

She beams and hugs me and gives me candy.

 

But father is a toughie, and soon I find

His buttons. Some I push for this and some

I push for that. Always pushing for what

I want. I am the perfect brat.

 

But those days are gone. I’ve grown up.

I’ve become a wife to someone who

Can give me what I want—all the things

That I could ask for to make me happy.

 

I am the perfect spouse. I cook and clean

And darn his socks. I keep his underwear

Neat in rows and dust his workbench,

And he gets sex whenever he wants.

 

We are the perfect couple. I am pretty

And he is handsome, making lots of money

To buy the right house and car,

To show the world we have this and more.

 

But something is happening—I don’t know what,

And plastic people are walking, smiling,

And holding hands. They cry on cue and scream

And yell to get the things they want.

 

The eves are falling off our perfect house.

We patch them up and then again,

But cannot stop the rain of plastic faces

From falling in. I pick one up—it is mine.

 

I smile and cry, and then I know

That all the others are me, too.

My husband left with his intact, grasping

Tight lest they should fall and leave him naked.

 

Caressing each old fallen face, I laugh

And replay the stories of each one’s witless past

And how they led me down the perfect path

To simply see and Be here and now.

 

 

BBP223