Anywhere
Jackpine Sonnet

I knew you the first day
I saw you. I knew your heart
before you could open it up
and let me in. I knew your soul
before you allowed me
to touch its beauty’s depth.

Did I know you from another
life? I just don’t know. I only
know that I knew who you were
and what you meant to me.

Once I saw you, how could I let
you go? I reached across the bridge
that spans the ages and saw you
as you always were, clad in white,
shining like the Milky Way
across a universe of falling stars
and you the only one I wanted
to catch, put in my pocket,
 and keep safe in my heart.

Comment:

“Know thy self!” So easy to say, but not so easy to do. Sometimes it is easier to know others, to see them clearly, than it is to know ourselves. As Robbie Burns once wrote – “Oh would some power the giftie gie us / to see ourselves as others see us.” The mirror of the self, alas, is a fairground mirror, snatched from the hall of mirrors, and it is a distorting mirror that turns us into different shapes and sizes.

And what about the ways in which people change? Miguel de Cervantes wrote that “the most difficult role in the play is that of the fool, for he who would play the fool must never be one.” How many of us wear a mask, play the fool, and it is only the joker’s bells that are heard, the fool’s mask that is seen?

And we can change in so many ways. Heraclitus – “we can never walk in the same river twice.” Why not? Because we change and the waters of the river change and everything is in fluctuation and nothing stays the same, not even for one day. Nostra vita brevis est … and it is subject to change.

How do we change? Let me count the ways – but, like petals on a daisy or seeds on a dandelion, the changes are almost impossible to count. Guillaume Apollinaire also wrote about change. “Je ne suis pas là moi-mème, je suis le quinze de l’onzième.” / “I am no more myself. I have become the fifth of the twelfth.” How often do people say – “I am a human being. I am not just a number.” Yet numbers are what we turn into. Statistics. Figures in columns. Dates in note books. Telephone numbers. Number plates on cars.

Oh the joys of time. Today’s heroes so soon turn into tomorrow’s forgotten people. Seeds on a dandelion, petals on a daisy, ants beneath the traveler’s feet … change is everywhere. And one day, even you, might look in that mirror and no longer recognize yourself. So – know yourself – yes – but always prepare for change.