Me's a Crowd

Who am I today? Husband, Father, Son or Brother A noble thought that gives itself away, Or some distant, self-obsessed Other? What shape I don tomorrow Who can say If I shall move across my stage Enacting joy or sorrow? What tides shall bear me To what familiar or what stranger port Whose ears shall hear, whose eyes shall see Old things or new, of unfamiliar sort Come crowding 'round my senses, Who may know What meanings they may bring, Or how assault My incomplete defenses? For I am, at base, like every man A shambling, shapeless Legion Who strives for sense as best he can Within the compass of his crowded reason, Bounded fore and aft by birth and death, Seeking for some middle way Amidst the crowd he is; To speak some sense with his last breath.