Favorite Stanley Kunitz Poem The Layers

Reposting after pulling this from spammers.  Now that I have removed the ability to post anonymously to this blog, problem solved!  Hooray and good riddance to bad rubbish and all the rest. I include here just one photo from my late Uncle Carl's home which we had to clean out for the estate sale and eventual home sale, in PA.  There were many layers to clear.  Carl had accumulated so much over a  lifetime of 93 years.  Now today, looking back I wish I could have kept more, but I do not need more things for memories and after all, there is a limit to what we can accumulate.    

When we lived in CA a group of us  formed a memorize and recite poetry group. Most of the group were far more liberal politically in their views  than me, but we shared a love of making poetry ours by memorizing. This group was the brainchild of  Susan Rushton, a local reporter, and I miss that camaraderie.  We met once a month.  This is one that I chose that has stayed with me ever since..

Stanley Kunitz died in 2006 at the age of 100; he had been a US Poet Laureate This poem reminds me of The Road by Cormac McCarthy and like that book,  it can be a sad tribute to life.

The Layers

I have walked through many lives, some of them my own,

and I am not who I was,

though some principle of being abides,

from which I struggle not to stray.

When I look behind,

as I am compelled to look before I can gather strength

to proceed on my journey,

I see the milestones dwindling toward the horizon

and the slow fires trailing from the abandoned camp-sites,

over which scavenger angels wheel on heavy wings.

Oh, I have made myself a tribe out of my true affections,

and my tribe is scattered!

How shall the heart be reconciled to its feast of losses?

In a rising wind the manic dust of my friends,

those who fell along the way,

bitterly stings my face.

Yet I turn, I turn,

exulting somewhat,

with my will intact to go wherever I need to go,

and every stone on the road precious to me.

In my darkest night,when the moon was covered

and I roamed through wreckage,

a nimbus-clouded voice directed me:

"Live in the layers,not on the litter."

Though I lack the art to decipher it,

no doubt the next chapter in my book of transformations is already written.

I am not done with my changes.