A man uncomfortable with his age,
at a party under a tree
far older than he,
said, “Couldn’t they
at least change the beat
once in a while?”
While under the tree,
“I’m old,” he added,
to confirm his own
presentiments.
This tree has opened my soul
in the past, and
I think it makes me gentler.
“Open your soul, man,”
I said and regretted it,
for that is not how
the soul speaks.
“You get the party that you get.”
And young John,
for that was how
he called himself
(taking it seems
the perspective
of the ancient of trees),
heard nothing but reproach,
though what I meant was:
Be Free.
“I have a situation in
Malindi,” John said
and thus faded himself
un-gently into
lonely ambiguity,
the latter his only fear.
“Change the beat,”
he said, under a tree
that sits anonymous
for centuries.
How can we be unhappy
in the presence
of such a thing?
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