I Would Like To Ask
Debra Kaufman
If I have always been my essential self,
an imperfect perfect being,
what does it mean to become?
I would like to ask the man
who claimed as we age we grow lighter,
are more drawn to the light:
How can that be, knowing we will leave,
leaving all we love?
My mother's silk handkerchief
embroidered with violets,
these peonies planted fifty years ago,
the framed photographs of my ancestors:
Much of what I have to give seems
indifferently received.
Sometimes I am graced by a voice
wiser, wittier, than my own.
Every night the world ends a little more.
I find a singular joy in sitting still.
When the west wind sends me a bouquet of warblers,
I am delighted but not surprised.
                       After Joseph Zaccardi
Debra Kaufman is the author of the poetry collections Outwalking the Shadow, God Shattered, Delicate Thefts, The Next Moment, and A Certain Light, as well as three chapbooks, many monologues and short plays, and five full-length plays. She recently adapted Johnny Johnson, Paul Green's 1936 antiwar play, for the Paul Green Foundation. A Midwest native, she has lived in North Carolina for 40 years. http://www.Debrakaufman.infoÂ