The Layers
\nby Stanley Kunitz<\/p>\n
I have walked through many lives,
\nsome of them my own,
\nand I am not who I was,
\nthough some principle of being
\nabides, from which I struggle
\nnot to stray.
\nWhen I look behind,
\nas I am compelled to look
\nbefore I can gather strength
\nto proceed on my journey,
\nI see the milestones dwindling
\ntoward the horizon
\nand the slow fires trailing
\nfrom the abandoned camp-sites,
\nover which scavenger angels
\nwheel on heavy wings.
\nOh, I have made myself a tribe
\nout of my true affections,
\nand my tribe is scattered!
\nHow shall the heart be reconciled
\nto its feast of losses?
\nIn a rising wind
\nthe manic dust of my friends,
\nthose who fell along the way,
\nbitterly stings my face.
\nYet I turn, I turn,
\nexulting somewhat,
\nwith my will intact to go
\nwherever I need to go,
\nand every stone on the road
\nprecious to me.
\nIn my darkest night,
\nwhen the moon was covered
\nand I roamed through wreckage,
\na nimbus-clouded voice
\ndirected me:
\n“Live in the layers,
\nnot on the litter.”
\nThough I lack the art
\nto decipher it,
\nno doubt the next chapter
\nin my book of transformations
\nis already written.
\nI am not done with my changes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Layers
\n by Stanley Kunitz<\/p>\n
I have walked through many lives,
\nsome of them my own,
\nand I am not who I was,
\nthough some principle of being
\nabides, from which I struggle
\nnot to stray.
\nWhen I look behind,
\nas I am compelled to look
\nbefore I can gather strength
\nto proceed on my journey,
\nI see the milestones dwindling
\ntoward the horizon
\nand the slow fires trailing
\nfrom the abandoned camp-sites,
\nover which scavenger angels
\nwheel on heavy wings.
\nOh, I have made myself a tribe
\nout of my true affections,
\nand my tribe is scattered!
\nHow shall the heart be reconciled
\nto its feast of losses?
\nIn a rising wind
\nthe manic dust of my friends,
\nthose who fell along the way,
\nbitterly stings my face.
\nYet I turn, I turn,
\nexulting somewhat,
\nwith my will intact to go
\nwherever I need to go,
\nand every stone on the road
\nprecious to me.
\nIn my darkest night,
\nwhen the moon was covered
\nand I roamed through wreckage,
\na nimbus-clouded voice
\ndirected me:
\n“Live in the layers,
\nnot on the litter.”
\nThough I lack the art
\nto decipher it,
\nno doubt the next chapter
\nin my book of transformations
\nis already written.
\nI am not done with my changes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"quote","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[7],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.law.temple.edu\/events\/classof2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.law.temple.edu\/events\/classof2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.law.temple.edu\/events\/classof2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.law.temple.edu\/events\/classof2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.law.temple.edu\/events\/classof2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www2.law.temple.edu\/events\/classof2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":277,"href":"https:\/\/www2.law.temple.edu\/events\/classof2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241\/revisions\/277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.law.temple.edu\/events\/classof2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.law.temple.edu\/events\/classof2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.law.temple.edu\/events\/classof2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.law.temple.edu\/events\/classof2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}