midlife

Now we come to the next segment of the story in which I began sending my writings out for publication in other street papers around the country. Since the advent of NASNA, these different papers were brought into contact with each other, and we saw more potential for sharing and including material from other regions as the national and international dimensions of the homeless problem became clearer. So my writings, both poetry and prose, began to appear in a variety of different papers from coast to coast.

Yes, sometimes I wrote poetry too. Here is one such offering that was printed in Portland's Burnside Cadillac in April 1997, about a love that might have been, but was not:

MIDLIFE

                                                    There is no cure for growing older:
                                                    I'm just weaker and no bolder.
                                                    When I need a crying shoulder,
                                                                he is nowhere near.
                                                    And even as it's growing colder,
                                                                I'm still choked with fear.

                                                    We're supposed to be so strong,
                                                    But we've both been alone too long.
                                                    We're so afraid of being wrong
                                                                we can't reach out at all.
                                                    We won't go where we don't belong;
                                                                we're too afraid to call.

                                                    Does he hear my S.O.S.?
                                                    As always, I can only guess.
                                                    We're much too frightened to confess
                                                                 the things we really feel.
                                                    We'd rather live in endless stress
                                                                 than find out what is real.

                                                    Why am I shaken to the core?
                                                    What is this hunger really for,
                                                     If we can reproduce no more?
                                                                 We have the right to ask!
                                                    The answers might unlock the door--
                                                                 It's not a hopeless task!

                                                     For once our fears have all been named,
                                                     And once our souls have been reclaimed,
                                                     We'll need no longer be ashamed;
                                                                 It won't hurt any more,
                                                     We're not the ones who should be blamed
                                                                 for what went wrong before.

                                                      So why, then, should we be afraid?
                                                      It's not for this that we were made.
                                                      Despite the former roles we played,
                                                                 we still can let them go.
                                                      It's only love that should have stayed,
                                                                 and now at least we know.

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