My CDs

Looking at my CD collection
is embarking on
a trip to bygone times,
circumstances, and ways
of knowing the world.
I look at particular titles
and remember exactly what
I was thinking when I bought
the CD, and as I listened to it.
Even without hearing the music,
the names and album covers
remind me of a foolish
young man, ignorant, full of
hubris. I sense all that I was
and ever will be in these
preserved snippets of my
inclinations. Which way
does the romantic young man
lean? My CDs can tell me,
though I've long since forgotten.
With hopes in tatters,
I choose to forget what
I was aiming for, who
I hoped I might be, why
I did what I did. Why
did I persevere? Heaven knows.
All my CDs can say is
where I went and what I thought.
The why part has a whole new order
of significance in its complexity.
In its senselessness.
In its hopelessness.

(2008)