May Sarton is a woman who lived in New England. She was a writer, journalist, and poet. She has written many great novels which I have always found to be a delight to read.Her poetry sings from the heart. Her journals take you to a place when you need to think about new perceptions and to think about talking to other women. You can get her books at your local library.
Now I Become Myself
May Sarton
Now I become myself. It’s taken
Time, many years and places;
I have dissolved and shaken,
Worn other people’s faces,
Run madly, as if Time were there,
Terrible old, crying a warning,
“Hurry, you will be dead before—-“
( What? Before you reach the morning?
Or the end of the poem is clear?
Or love safe in the walled city?)
Now to stand still, to be here,
Feel my own weight and destiny!
The black shadow on the paper
Is my hand, the shadow of a word
As thought shapes the shaper
Falls heavy on the page, is heard
All fuses now, falls into place
From wish to action, ,word to silence,
My work, my love, my love, my time, my face
Gathered into one intense
Gesture of growing like a plant.
As slowly as the ripening fruit
Fertile, detached, and always spent,
Falls but does not exhaust the root,
So all the poem is, can give,
Grows in me to become the song,
Made so and rooted so by love
New there is time and Time is young.
O, in this single hour I live
All of myself and do not move.
I, the pursued, who madly ran,
Stand still, stand still, and stop the sun.”