Let me try again.
No matter how much self-regard I have,
it has not been easy, this strut,  
this combative whining, this living with myself.
Nonplussed by what I've done, by what I haven't done.
Frenzied, tranquil,
a variable demeanor.  
I am less then I am more.  I am two blue jays  
nesting in a chokecherry tree,  
an overripe smell from the garbage  
and I am not these,
nor the concern for pain in my upper torso.
I am as singular as each event.
I am my own dodo, extinguishing myself.
 
Splashes of sunlight turn me to something else
reckless as any other early green thing.
Crocus, adder's-tongue, dandelion,
I am all of these,
also,  
an old tree,  
a pitted, dead, branchless trunk.

-- Frank C. Praeger