Roof I
Often I -
Often I wish -
Often I wish I could just be, be higher, be on the roof.
I know I could never be bored on the roof. I could never be cold, or wet.
Well, scratch that - I could be cold, or wet, or both, but I wouldn't mind.
I wonder -
I wonder whether -
I wonder whether I'd stay on the roof forever. I think it would be terrific at first, I mean,
I know it would. That's the premise...
But would I remain so content?
Often I -
Often I know -
Often I know I would aspire to the next roof, the higher roof,
That Great Big Roof in the Sky!
Yes, I admit it - shamefacedly?
That next roof is always more interesting. A whole world of roofs opens up before me, lower or higher but generally increasing in height - and that is the form that my optimism does take, now and forever.
Roof II
Who?
Who knows?
Who know how I will traverse
Such Great Heights?
The air conditioners hum;
The water towers rust and creek;
The gardens flourish and the swimming pools shine -
But all I need is the roof, the roofs, the wonderful, lonely, terrific, forbidden, and dirty-lovely abode of the romantic, the bored, the intrepid.
And if I abandon one, to attempt the next? So what.
I scale the hard blank faces of the concrete jungle. We all do, in our own way.
So often I -
Often I wish -
Often I wish I could just be -
But roofless, I wish nothing at all.