Nobody in the widow's household <br />ever celebrated anniversaries. <br />In the secrecy of my room <br />I would not admit I cared <br />that my friends were given parties. <br />Before I left town for school <br />my birthday went up in smoke <br />in a fire at City Hall that gutted <br />the Department of Vital Statistics. <br />If it weren't for a census report <br />of a five-year-old White Male <br />sharing my mother's address <br />at the Green Street tenement in Worcester <br />I'd have no documentary proof <br />that I exist. You are the first, <br />my dear, to bully me <br />into these festive occasions. <br /> <br />Sometimes, you say, I wear <br />an abstracted look that drives you <br />up the wall, as though it signified <br />distress or disaffection. <br />Don't take it so to heart. <br />Maybe I enjoy not-being as much <br />as being who I am. Maybe <br />it's time for me to practice <br />growing old. The way I look <br />at it, I'm passing through a phase: <br />gradually I'm changing to a word. <br />Whatever you choose to claim <br />of me is always yours: <br />nothing is truly mine <br />except my name. I only <br />borrowed this dust.<br /><br />Stanley Kunitz<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/passing-through/
