Author's Note:
This wasn't getting any traffic in Writer's Workshop, so I hope you don't mind that I took the liberty to post it here.
I have wished to be someone else . . .
I have wished to be someone else,
a poet from New England
able to transcend travail with perfect words.
Emerson comes to mind, or the fantasies
of Whitman, who incidentally is no more;
lily pads drifting on Walden Pond,
and Alcott's childhood home, where little
things become more than words on a page.
Or like Miss Prynne I'd challenge life
with a steadfast ear and indifferent glance
at erring humans and a second chance.
Often I've wanted to live as an
author caught in turmoil,
with pen for sword. I'd fight wars
as bravely as Thoreau rendered civility
and proclaimed justice. My ideals are as big.
When debating the merits of moving north
and secluding myself from all but trees,
I thought:
If they were born today, no doubt,
even hundreds of miles south,
Civil Disobedience would not be hushed,
and my children would still study the poems of Poe,
because wisdom often disregards time.
