I think most of us come into life this way. Open, free, arms and legs flailing, lungs gulping air and expelling futility. We have no idea of the world until we do. We find it safe or frightening, depending on luck, circumstance, and perhaps fate.
I wonder about children in foreign lands – countries that seem always on the brink of civil unrest. How must it feel to fear the night, to keep one’s head down during daylight hours, to roam the streets with armed guards patrolling every block? Yet somehow growing up, I became imprisoned inside myself. I admit this because I hardly think I am alone. Half of me pulled inward while the other part learned how to play the outside game. I wonder how many never reconcile these disjointed factions, once maturity liberates us from the need to placate them.
How often have I repeated Scene I, Take II, over and over again? My story, and unknowingly I stuck by it. For years. Was I attempting to reinvent the past, to right innumerable wrongs? Did I simply forget to ad lib? How attached the guileless seem to the script we have been handed through no fault or direction of our own, as if the gods struck stage marks and we are loathe to step away.
Is free will a disease? For, although I possessed a plethora of choices all along once I attained adulthood, contagion seemingly took forever. But oh, when it caught on! It was like clamping my eyes shut and praying to grab the most fragrant, the loveliest bridal bouquet; watching in disbelief as it sailed right through the molecules of sky, straight into my eager hands.
SONG OF AN OLD MAN
I
Here I am
With a story
Without a beginning, without an end, without a story
But here I am
I came here
Proudly
With my fine circus
With my elephants, my clowns, my highwire
And my fleas
No – now my memory fails me too
I never had fleas till I came here
Proudly
With my circus in a bag on my back
In the country my circus was a rage
Everyone came
Everyone marvelled and took something home
But then I came to the city
Spying out the land
And all those people
Rushing back and forth
I don’t know
Frightened me somehow
With their beards and monocles
Their sweaters and nylon stockings
Frightened me somehow
And I clung on to my bag
To keep my circus quiet
Out of sight till the time came
II
Remembering
How old was I when you gave me my circus?
Pleased at first as children are
Then awed, ecstatic, angry, indignant, blind with rage and screaming as I learned
All the time learning
I remember the accidents
Fire in the stables roasting horses like chickens
Young girls missing the net to explode like wine glasses
I couldn’t close my eyes
Saw every hurt
Felt blood flow
And all the time learning my trade
Until you should make me master of the ring
Good times too
Delivering foals at 3 a.m.
Lovers holding hands a hundred feet up
The clown risking his life when the lion got loose
All the stories the artistes had to tell
All the time learning
Learning my trade
For I was to announce them and their stories
In the city
And here
Here I was
Nervous
Dumbstruck
III
I have been proud in my life
I have had to learn not to thank you for making me like this
Not to thank you I am not as other men
But now as a reward
Please please
Let me be like them
Please
I was too prudent
I did not book a hall
I did not light lights
Hang up posters
Parade them through the town
I kept them quiet
Out of sight till the time came
I was too prudent
It was a wet November
The streets reflected the lights
And clung to my shoes
I huddled in cafés
Slept in alleys
I bought drinks for people I thought might like circuses
Made them my friends
I told them anecdotes
I spent years at it
I learned to speak
To make people laugh by keeping a straight face
And by crying to make them cry
But many didn’t understand me
IV
And some – some I trusted
Thought ill of me
That my stories were lies
Were all mine
In some way “my opinion”
And cost me more years of learning
For only a fool is angry when no one listens
And no one listens to a fool
So now I am an old fool
But I heard – I saw those stories
They belong to me
To you
To the people who drank my drinks
And would not listen
I was too prudent
And too foolish
I have spent all my money
I have sold everything to buy people drinks
My elephants, my clowns, my highwire
All I have left are my fleas
I would ask you to book a hall for me
To light lights
Hang up posters
To buy back my animals and parade them through the town
But I am afraid
For you would refuse
I would ask you if my fleas are enough
But I am afraid
For you would say yes
– https://bennaga.wordpress.com/2012/06/03/song-of-an-old-man/
Wow. Lots going on here. Is your relationship with horses real? I’ve been a horse person all my life. Our last boy died a couple of years ago. Cheers, BN.
All metaphor I’m afraid. And I certainly don’t have fleas. 😀
No, I didn’t figure you did 😉
Well that’s a relief. 🙂