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Like a house divided
against itself, I tried
to stand, never knowing
whether I was meant
to bang a typewriter or
hold a hammer, growing
up with a garment-worker
father, now sculptor,
and a mother, secretary
turned poet. In school,
studious but ever con-
temptuous of academe
and its pretensions; in
the shop and garden,
happy to work, to figure
things out, to sweat, yet
still drawn to a world of
ideas, a chronic voyeur.
This thing, this life, mine,
split like a well-bombarded
atom, perpetually awaiting
the grand synthesis of some
sweeping theory's promise,
or perhaps just the simple
acceptance of the seasons,
changing and returning,
changing and returning,
to the beaten shore.
May 1992