The Layers

I'm not a BIG poetry person... but this one by Stanley Kunitz its a goodie.

Some serious memory lane kinda stuff...

I have walked through many lives, some of them my own, 

and I am not who I was, 

though some principle of being abides, from which I struggle not to stray. 

When I look behind, as I am compelled to look 

before I can gather strength to proceed on my journey, 

I see the milestones dwindling toward the horizon 

and the slow fires trailing from the abandoned camp-sites, 

over which scavenger angels wheel on heavy wings. 

Oh, I have made myself a tribe out of my true affections, and my tribe is scattered! 

How shall the heart be reconciled to its feast of losses? 

In a rising wind the manic dust of my friends, those who fell along the way, bitterly stings my face. 

Yet I turn, I turn, exulting somewhat, with my will intact to go wherever I need to go, 

and every stone on the road precious to me. 

In my darkest night, when the moon was covered and I roamed through wreckage, a nimbus-clouded voice directed me: "Live in the layers, not on the litter." 

Though I lack the art to decipher it, no doubt the next chapter in my book of transformations is already written. I am not done with my changes.