To My Twenties --------> by Kenneth Koch

How lucky that I ran into you
When everything was possible
For my legs and arms, and with hope in my heart
And so happy to see any woman—
O woman! O my twentieth year!
Basking in you, you
Oasis from both growing and decay
Fantastic unheard of nine- or ten-year oasis
A palm tree, hey! And then another
And another—and water!
I’m still very impressed by you. Whither,
Midst falling decades, have you gone? Oh in what lucky fellow,
Unsure of himself, upset, and unemployable
For the moment in any case, do you live now?
From my window I drop a nickel
By mistake. With
You I race down to get it
But I find there on
The street instead, a good friend
X—— N——, who says to me
Kenneth do you have a minute?
And I say yes! I am in my twenties!
I have plenty of time! In you I marry,
In you I first go to France; I make my best friends
In you, and a few enemies. I
Write a lot and am living all the time
And thinking about living. I loved to frequent you
After my teens and before my thirties.
You three together in a bar
I always preferred you because you were midmost
Most lustrous apparently strongest
Although now that I look back on you
What part have you played?
You never, ever, were stingy.
What you gave me you gave whole
But as for telling
Me how best to use it
You weren’t a genius at that.
Twenties, my soul
Is yours for the asking
You know that, if you ever come back.

—Kenneth Koch

A Time and a Place

There’s never enough time in the day, or the week. Or a lifetime. At the end of almost every day I hear myself say, “There’s just not enough time to get everything done.”

Our days (by ‘our’ I mean both men and women) are fleeting. I’m afraid of that morning when I’m in my th-th-thirties and I look in the mirror, and there’s nothing. I’m gone. I’m gone and I didn’t finish that long To-Do List.

Today I yelled at Vivian. I was so busy cleaning, baking, and dealing with Mikey, and she kept hollering for me to look at something on the T.V, or watch a particular scene from her show. I couldn’t keep pulling myself away and I just wanted QUIET. I wanted CALM, PEACE, and fucking QUIET. Because it’s not until everything is done that I can relax, but the trick is completing that “everything.” I’ve noticed that the “everything” has a sly way of multiplying itself, and increasing, and intensifying, and swelling into more and more and more, and never ending. To conquer the To-Do List is a monumental triumph. And to complete it while you’re still human – Evolution my friend.

Evo-fucking-lution.

Later, when I had a moment to relax, and write this blog, the guilt set in - the guilt of not spending enough time with my child (and children are the most important things). I suddenly remembered a very specific memory of my mother (and mothers are the most important things) . . .

I suppose the wise man would find balance amongst the chaos of strings pulling the frazzled man in opposing directions, and kudos to that motherfucker. There is power in finding that calm, peace, and quiet. Absolutely.