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Stanley Kunitz
Passing Through
—on my seventy-ninth birthday
Nobody in the widow’s household
ever celebrated anniversaries.
In the secrecy of my room
I would not admit I cared
that my friends were given parties.
Before I left town for school
my birthday went up in smoke
in a fire at City Hall that gutted
the Department of Vital Statistics.
If it weren’t for a census report
of a five-year-old White Male
sharing my mother’s address
at the Green Street tenement in Worcester
I’d have no documentary proof
that I exist. You are the first,
my dear, to bully me
into these festive occasions.
Sometimes, you say, I wear
an abstracted look that drives you
up the wall, as though it signified
distress or disaffection.
Don’t take it so to heart.
Maybe I enjoy not-being as much
as being who I am. Maybe
it’s time for me to practice
growing old. The way I look
at it, I’m passing through a phase:
gradually I’m changing to a word.
Whatever you choose to claim
of me is always yours;
nothing is truly mine
except my name. I only
borrowed this dust.
--
We had Stanley Kunitz on this earth for a good long time, but even if we had him for another century, it wouldn't be enough. I did some web-searches for birthday poems, as it is my birthday, and this one really touched me. Well, several of them did, in fact, Dylan Thomas' Poem in October also came up in the search, and that's an immortal poem, if art can be immortal. But Brother Stanley really stood out for me today. 'I only borrowed this dust. Maybe it's time for me to practice getting old.' I look at it like that, too. I may have posted Passing Through once before, back when he passed away. It's worth an extra read, don't you think?
Also, I have a hit counter on this blog. I know there are a lot of people who come here everyday, and don't post comments or interact with me in any other way but to read. Thanks. Whoever you are, I'm glad you read these poems.
All Good Things - Jobe