{"sf1_id":1695980,"sf2_id":"beblLWnA","title":"I Ask Myself How Is It I Have Come","author":"Rob MacWolf","words":762,"posted_at":"2021-03-15T21:37:00.000Z","tags":["Autobiographical","Gay","Poetry","Romance","blank verse"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1695980-i-ask-myself-how-is-it-i-have-come","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/s/beblLWnA","image_url":"https://cdn.sofurryfiles.com/submissions/thumbnails/d0/ff/d0ff013a-071c-4114-b04d-327ff99449b1","description":"#1 of poetry\n\nYou can maybe see, given the general body of my work, why I wrote something about how I was worried for my ability to write anything about love that wasn't sad.","content":"I ask myself, how is it I have come,\n\nStill so far from the sunset of my days,\n\n(I pray tis not yet sunset on my days)\u0026nbsp;\n\nUnto some chamber in the maze of life\n\nWhere it is possible to hear you say\n\n'I miss you' and 'I feel your absence in\n\nThe times when just to have you close nearby\n\nWould bring me rest from grieving.' (Sunset knows\n\nHow much indeed I need rest from grieving)\u0026nbsp;\n\nNot lust, not appetite, not anything\n\nThat narrow press-lipped matrons warned against,\n\nBut only that you want me by your side.\n\n  \n\nI ask myself, how is it I have met,\n\nStill nowhere near the sunset of my days,\n\n(And if this be the sunset of my days,\n\nI pray the sunset last for decades yet)\n\nWith that rare breed of love that poets would\n\nHave you believe is something only glimpsed\n\nBut once in a millennium, if that.\n\nThe kind that is an ever fix'd mark\n\nYet does not mind when I am less than fixed,\n\nYet still is thrilled when I am fixed again.\u0026nbsp;\n\nThat when I once had nowhere else to turn\n\n(The sunset knows, not very long ago)\n\nNo one to care that I should live or die,\n\nIt, by so caring, unexpectedly,\u0026nbsp;\n\nReminded me--this is what life feels like.\n\nThis is a home. And this a family.\u0026nbsp;\n\nAnd all these things are not exclusively\u0026nbsp;\n\nReserved for other people. You as well\n\nShall pass through these before you pass the gates\n\nOf utter west, and in the sunset rest.\n\n(I pray that when I to that sunset pass\u0026nbsp;\n\nI find your path continues by my side.)\n\n  \n\nI ask myself, how much you asked yourself,\n\nFor I have not the heart to ask you plain,\n\n(But, sunset knows, must hide it in a verse,)\n\nHow long, oh lord, how long did you endure?\n\nYou knew, I know, the windless desert air\n\nWhere sun is cruelty, and never sets,\n\nAnd teaches but one lesson--Nobody\n\nEver will help you, ever will defend.\n\nDid you despair as deeply as did I?\n\nWas it as much impossibility\u0026nbsp;\n\nFor you, when that intolerable sun\n\nProved one day to be setting, as for me?\n\n(I prayed for sunset long before I knew\n\nThere was such thing as sunset.) If I traced\n\nWith disbelieving fingers all the scars\n\nThat cruelty and caution long since etched\n\nAcross your nerves, would I find them a match\n\nFor those that throb upon my hands and side?\n\n  \n\nI do not ask myself, if I deserve,\u0026nbsp;\n\nWho knows how near the sunset of my life\n\n(And if this were the sunset, I would be\n\nContent with such a sunset to my life)\n\nTo have you. It may be that I do not.\n\nThere's no 'deserve' to gentle rain, or sound\n\nOf trees against the wind, or candlelight\u0026nbsp;\n\nIn winter, or the distant salt sea smell.\n\nWhat pedant hypocrite would think to ask\n\n\"Do you deserve the air?\" I have the air.\n\nI have the smell of sea. I have the flame\n\nOn winter nights. I have the sound of trees.\n\nI have soft blessed rain. (And sunset knows\n\nI have, all undeserving, the sunset.)\n\nWhatever else you ask yourself, my love,\n\nAsk not if you deserve me by your side.\n\n  \n\nI often ask myself, when others come\n\nAfter has passed the sunset of our days\n\n(Not even sunset knows who they shall be)\n\nAnd we are gone, what archeology,\u0026nbsp;\n\nWhat mastery of lore, what history,\u0026nbsp;\n\nCould make them understand what you and I\n\nOnce built here, for eachother? What traces\n\nDo such as you and I leave by the way--\n\nNo family name, no bloodline, no heirloom,\n\nNo genealogy, no monuments.\u0026nbsp;\n\n(I pray the sunset, one day to accept\n\nMe of his bloodline, but that does not count.)\n\nWhat kind of breadcrumb trail could lead the eyes\n\nOf future ages, in the maze of life,\n\nTo find the chambers where I was with you?\u0026nbsp;\n\nA dog collar, too many worn-out shoes,\n\nSome soda cans, some scraps of poetry.\n\nIf they can guess, from these, the kind of life\n\nAnd home and family you were to me,\n\nThey're wiser far than any age before.\n\nBut then, I ask myself, what do I care?\n\nI do not live for them.\n\n  \n\n\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;I live for you.\n\nWhen you shall say that just to have me near\n\nWould bring you rest from grieving, let me be\n\nAt once and without question by your side\n\nFrom now until the sunset of my days.\n\nAnd aye, beyond. (May sunset will it so.)\n\n  \n  \n\n","series":{"name":"poetry","previous":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1695976-i-do-not-fear-a-season-without-hope.json","next":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1695983-this-poem-is-haunted.json"}}