Past=Tense

I spent a part of the evening re-reading How to Prepare for the Past and came to many conclusions:

1) I really like it, 28 years later.

2) It's not a book

3) It's uncomfortably personal

I think the only way I was able to pass it around to friends, back then, was to completely forget what I'd written.  Can I post it here? Should I post it here? If my children find their way here, will it make them more nervous than they already are?

So, tomorrow, I think I'll start patching in the less cringe-worthy bits.  In the meantime, I also found the poem I wrote and then read at my brother's wedding, and I will post that, because I still really like it, even though the Merwin influence is enough to whack you over the head and drag you into a cul de sac:

Legend

This is where the legend starts

And the moon, reflected in any river, mirrors

the face of the one you will love

longer than memory

Longer than the tail of the wind

caught in the trees at the river's edge

This is where fire begins

And the name you write in sand

that cannot be erased by water

will be the last name you hear

This is where the last time

We said goodbye is sleeping still

And what words we couldn't find

Lie awake beside it, counting stars

I tell you this

As if we were children