AH, GOAT SONGS...

I.

So, who can sit in judgment on a lover?
No sober and impartial eye can claim
To have an inkling how we soar and suffer,
So either judge or love usurps the name.

We can, and do, accuse ourselves, each other—
There is delicious agony in doubt,
In struggle for control—in that we're brothers.
Till love ends, doubt and struggle soon die out.

My life has brought me into situations
I never dreamed, some bitter and some sweet,
A sea of wild, conflicted complications
Since that first night you swept me off my feet.

You had not sought a new desideratum,
But found one in a new-born pushy bottom.

II.

I never was an artist. My concerns
With paying rent made me seem half-accountant.
I never had that faith in art that burns
And drives the artist, faith that moves its mountain.

True writers make their name by skill in art,
But by one thing, I think, above all others:
Capacity to show the mind and heart
Of strangers, be they sisters, sons, or mothers.

I see that in that sense I'm raw and green.
While scenes I played a part in keep returning,
I just begin to see how they were seen
By those in bigger roles, whose souls weren't churning.

We can't know how our actions will play out—
All those who live in faith will live with doubt.
C