From long ago

I don’t seem to have changed much, except perhaps by clarification of intentions.

I just came across a tattered yellow scroll I’ve kept with me since the summer after my first or second year of college. It’s a poem of sorts, written by a girl my age whom I met in the park near my grandmother’s house. We started to get to know each other over two or three afternoons, sitting and talking in the park. I don’t remember her name, nor do I remember much about what we discussed. I’m pretty sure we shared some common frustrations about restrictive parents, because I remember telling her parents that she loved them and that they’d all be happier if they trusted her more. I told them this about two or three days after we met, as they picked her up to leave together on a family vacation.

The girl gave me the scroll just before they left. I don’t think we ever knew each other’s addresses nor expected to see each other again. I’m not sure I even knew she liked me in any particular way. We were both idealists, and we just talked a lot, about the way we’d like to live our lives. This was during a time of national idealism, particularly among the youth, and we were reading mystical books and talking freely about what ought to be.

I can't recommend this poem as literature, but I am still touched to read about the impact I apparently had on a person’s life. I’ve been trying ever since to have that sort of impact someplace else.

Lying naked in the dewy grass
alone – with the whole world
everything shimmering
    with sprouts of spring growth
smiling trees and smiling me
flowers and foolishness
bees, birds, butterflies and being –
    Being is beautiful;
leaves and limbs, lonely woods
    and lazy love
¼ and ¼ are only ½
    and nothing at all!
½ and ½ are 1
    and 1 is everything.
But 1 and 1 are 2
    and 2 is forever,
because 2 is sharing
and life demands sharing.
So Spring is where it all begins.
The wind whispers – life, thru the
trees and the grass and me!
and the sun rolls across the sky.
Life is green and yellow, and blue
and all the colors in a rainbow,
it’s a pot of gold.

But living in other days
    is grey
like walking around with a fog bank
    always 1 step ahead and ½ step behind.
And no light comes from above
where only plastic flowers grow.
¼ and ¼ are only ½, and nothing at all…
½ and ½ are 1
    and 1 is everything
but 1 and 1 are 2
    and 2 is a forever
because 2 is sharing
and you have shared – yourself with me.
A touch and a warm glance
    needed ever so much
    and you don’t even know me.
Spring is where all begins
    life is sharing
Thank you for your warmth.