I don't want to get there

and wish that it hadn't happened
at all,
to wish that there had never been
that slow emergence of
myself out of the mists
of helpless childhood,
to come to the
sour conclusion that the
happy times and the humble
comforts and the laughter
had been eclipsed by the
gray days and the despair
and the dark rage at what was,
what could have been,
and what I never understood.
I want to get there
knowing that it had been right
for me to take the chance on
capricious love, even if I didn't
understand what love had been
(or even if nobody did).
I hope I have the presence of mind,
(and the reason)
to be grateful for having had
the chance to exist at all
in a universe in which that was
a mind bendingly unlikely event.
I hope to see
(and to recognize)
the ones whose lives always meant
more to me
than mine.
Above all, I hope that I look at the
man I was
and know that in some way,
the expedition benefited from
having had me as a member,
however small a garden
I leave behind.