Who Is Me?

"My sinuses," "my brain," "my tree"--who is talking?
~
Me Again

Must I be me again today?
Why can’t someone else take a turn?
I know how an actor feels in a play
That runs so long, he begins to yearn
For a different role, would like to learn
How someone else would handle his lines,
And yawns to think he has to say
The same words for the hundredth time;

But clinging to his small success,
He walks through the part, remembering when
Safe boredom would have seemed to bless
The days before his ship came in.
So I, though wondering now and then
How someone else would handle the lines,
I put aside my wistfulness,
And play the part for the thousandth time.

By JRC, June 17, 1974

"I measure myself against a tall tree..." - Wallace Stevens, Opus Posthumous, 1930-something.