the traveler

by louise gluck from the seven ages

at the top of the tree was what i wanted.

fortunately i had read books:

i knew i was being tested.

i knew nothing would work --

not to climb that high, not to force

the fruit down. one of three results must follow:

the fruit isn’t what you imagined,

or it is but fails to satiate.

or it is damaged in falling

and as a shattered thing torments you forever.

but i refused to be

bested by fruit. i stood under the tree,

waiting for my mind to save me.

i stood, long after the fruit rotted.

and after many years, a traveler passed by me

where i stood, and greeted me warmly,

as one would greet a brother. and i asked why,

why was i so familiar to him,

having never seen him?

and he said,”because i am like you,

therefore i recognize you. i treated all experience

as a spiritual or intellectual trial

in which to exhibit or prove my superiority

to my predecessors. i chose

to live in hypothesis; longing sustained me.

in fact, what i needed most was longing, which you seem

to have achieved in stasis,

but which i have found in change, in departure.”