A poem about an ongoing search in my life. I think this quest started when just in kindergarten - we lived in a desolate, mosquito, bear-infested mining town in Northern Ontario - Renabie. Not even a road to get there. I wasn’t in school and would hang out back of my dad’s workplace - he ran the kitchen there for hundreds of miners.
At that time, I befriended a young miner. We used to hang out . We’d do some cool stuff … I admired him immensely. We all need mentors like this and I’ve been unceaselessly looking since. The heroes of books and movies aren’t enough …
To end - I think this quest, this search is neverending. It’s the drive, this impulse that is important. It’s like life itself. If you are a successful in finding its meaning - you’re dead. Or as the Chinese say, “A man finishes building his house, he dies.” A paradox yes, but there is so little we truly know.
It’s the one
you’ve never met
that keeps you going.
Each trip to the mall
Each baseball game or dinner party
Each film you watch
You look for him or her
But they’re never there.
The one
that is truly alive
and
looking up at you,
flashes eyes
like those of a wolf
scanning the horizon
on a midwinter's day.
I’ve looked
in faraway cities
on faraway streets.
He’s not out there.
Each time I look
into the mirror,
I expect to see him
appear behind me
or even in me
but he never does.
Soon it will be
too late for me.
My life filled with
books, lies, puss
cars, buses, barber shops
aches, angst and ardor
but never this man
that kept me going.