ORPHAN

by Daniel Mark Epstein

What was I looking for in that room

Crowded with old books, shelves so full,

It seemed they could not hold another title,

Except where in places a weary volume

Leaned upon its neighbor’s crooked spine?

Some dimly remembered novel or poem

I once read and loved, or dreamed of?

Either a real book or the book of dreams

A friend once advised me to record:

Write upon waking, the dreams will come

If you wait and listen, word for word.

And night and day must be reconciled

Like mother and father, parent and child,

Brother and sister, lovers who have quarreled.

Although I never did as I was told,

I have met the morning every day I could,

Shaken the darkness, come to the table,

Truly grateful for what fare was offered,

Bran or manna, ambrosia or bread,

A sentence, a tragedy, or a kind word.

And now, almost sixty and an orphan —

As nature would have it — I am the age

My father was when he died. Every day

Seems to me it might be the final one.

Pressed for time to make peace with the past,

I look for a book so broad-backed and strong

That it will stand up on the shelf alone.