"Song of My Own Self"
Dorothy Wire
Vincennes, IN

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And I am something.
Not much, mind you, in comparison to divinity,
But I am…As well as we all are.

I sigh the relief that I may sigh,
And close my eyes.
And as I divide myself among dandelions,
I sigh, yet.

The lung-container of my life;
Each follicle of my richly dyed hair;
Sprung primarily from ribs and dust and
Passed on through strings of genes
And scientific life for six generations;
I, now sixteen, full and forming years,
In slowly fading health, tell you only
What will make you think,
Hoping not to bore you with my tale.

Testimonies and textbooks stifled, but not shunned
(For the sake of strong foundations),
I pour myself onto this page and pray
You understand my spouts.


14

Each purr of the snuggling kit to me-
Mother or guardian,
She knows not the difference, chills me;
Fills me with appreciating love,
Co-dependent upon this for I grovel, really,
At the divine connection we actually have.

The dancing dragonfly, the misty
Eyes of the owl; calling its reprieve to the night sky;
The adorning crown of the cobra: King
Of Striking Rememberances to Pain;
The blue feet of the cricket, playing
His old sweet song;
I can see the way, the truth, the light
Of life's purpose in these momentary miracles
Of Earth-her children.

I must say;
My tears fall warmly to nurture these,
For as they express their reason, I express
My soul-touched by their natural outreach.

I quiver at the frosty nip of the morning
As I wonder…
Where are all of the babbling brooks, famous
In Narcissus times?
Ah! Replaced;
By dirty gurgling ditches,
Stroking the sewage of human sloth-
Stinking up the embankments of
Those very brooks
With their conceited disillusion.

And though she weeps, Destiny soothes,
And for no more than its worth
(Everything),
I steal a staggering breath, and exhale
The contents of my concern into the wind,
Praying it shall never return to bustle my face,
For I make the effort to accept
My incapability,
And simultaneously grasp
The gratitude I hold for it.


17

Think, man of Destiny!
I spoke of her once before-
The Mother of Legend,
The Ruler of Faith Before Tears…
I think not alone-breathe not alone-
We are not alone.
Ah, Loneliness! Destroyer
Of men's hearts;
Thank God we are not alone.

As I sing, my fellows listen;
Hum silently as the gifted mistress
In the Choir-
Fearful of her own pride.
They spit out their teeth in shock
And spread their amazement
Thickly,
Onto the atmosphere I create.

And I am not unique,
And I am.

For we are alike,
And two things God put out
Make as us different
As we should be;
Free will, man, makes us human;
Misuse of it makes us common.

Everything has a place;
Everyone has a somewhere.
Never ever concern yourself with
Their seeming misplacement,
For that is why the world, so simple,
Is so complex to ourselves.

And daily we amuse ourselves
With selfish wiles and imaginings
Of Religion, Nature, Leisure.
Daily we defile our own souls,
Mistakenly, however, surely.


33

I have a picture in my mind;
Of pity, of heartache, of blood.
On a night,
Oh, rare night, when the wind blew backwards.
My mind, still soft and young
(And a little disconnected),
Wrapped around six unnecessary feet,
And filled me with admiration for
The desperate man's saviors.
I was six. He was sixty.

And somehow I saw, though I know
Now I was not supposed to,
The hole in his neck,
Placed so
By his misery…
God, why such foolish men
Bear this misery?
As he screamed his desperate scream,
That bloody void gurgled, ad
From his worn throat caught he
The flow
Inn red and disbelieving hands.

The look in his eyes-the stench
Of his miserable blood pulled me
Closer, closer, still closer to him
Until I became. Until I felt. Until
I experienced his pain;
God, what pain.

Then as I cried
(And my tears were shed as thinly as his soul),
I was ripped from the scene-
Blinded by the desperate man's plight,
And poked, probed, dug at
Until I screamed in my own despair.

Later I found
(When I could better understand the reason why),
That he lived.
And with the event in mind,
I prepared myself to see a small patch of flesh
Where the hole had once been.

I did not want tot see. I saw.
I absorbed, I realized that
The desperate man no longer had
A voice.

But I, still so young,
So fresh, called upon; gave grace to,
The desperate man's hero (and mine the same),
He did now want to be-
Safety.


52

I have been suspected of
Talking too loudly; of sounding
My opinion over the striving voice
Of my nemesis;
And of being right.

The end of the road seems bright-
I see no shadows,
For there is no darkness
To be seen…
But a dimness (for a millisecond)
To fear change;
Then brightness then
Dimness,
And finally rebirth.

And I have learned
In my lives,
In my lessons
In my lives
That We never really, truly
Die (to live no more),
We always live…

In bodies of water,
In bodies of flesh,
Be it even in blades of grass…

We give our souls
To the next lesson;
And so if you can't
Find me here,
Look for me later,
For I am sure we'll meet again.