All Dying Authors

There are texts that cannot sustain frequent rereading

No matter who you become, you will find nothing new in them

This is the addict's secret folly

Nostalgia for that most exquisite of moments

When just the right substance found just the right entry point

In exactly the sort of person it was looking for

You ceased to be that person the moment that scene was written

There simply is no way to go back

You can only scramble to assemble a replica in the present

Of what could only be perfect once, back there

But there are texts that await everyone you will become

The better to reveal parts of themselves you hadn't the mind for

Your vision was too good

How smooth and fragrant you were with innocence!

The skin of the fruit sufficed to nourish you

Walk your wrinkles slowly into that same place

There are characters who have been waiting for you

They ignored or mocked the jejune jerk you were

The grey, bruised cynic--there is the friend they recognize

Who can understand the frothing indignation of Othello

Without deep immersion in, then sputtering surfacing from

The heavy water of betrayal?

Who can understand the wilderness of Lear's outrage

Without being patronized and manipulated by the puppeteers

Of stumbling old age?

You cannot recapture the reader you were

You can become the reader the text needs

Everything we write is a draft

Until we can no longer write

We are all dying authors

We are all dying readers

We ought to see that the illusion

That the parallel tracks conjoin on the horizon

Has a wise, honest passenger

We will all meet on the horizon

As we draw closer to it

We become the readers the texts have awaited

The good ones, the real ones, dipped in beauty

Even as the they flash, raw and naked

What they knew we couldn't take

But must see, at last

Before it is too late