I have committed treason
with myself.
Going back over old poems,
finding the address
of where I come from.
The messages I carved
in my soul.
Ted loves life.
Ted has learned to read.
He found a sky full of words.
Heard the earth sing in his ears.
Watched the fragments of summer
fall around his shoes in autumn.
Left a note for a girl
he’ll never meet.
Found a woman he adores.
Got lost in the night
and never returned.
Now, having read these things,
and hundreds of others,
I blush with embarrassment,
shudder at the pain,
wonder if joy rings like a bell,
rain is the wine of forever.
If the future is an end
finding a beginning,
and the end is the sound
of doors closing.
To which,
I declare my allegiance
to earth over,
for reasons unclear to myself.
But hearing the past
find me now,
is like the momentary warmth
of an empty bed,
and wondering who it was.