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Show PART I 1. It is no dream, though all my life I have dreamed of it, of the past, of that vanished world which slips away from us all like clothes we've outgrown or outworn, disappeared forever but forever remembered, part of us, alive in us. Only think of the songs of youth we danced to, hummed in somebody's ear: they will play anytime, always. Yes, our past is the shaft of the arrow as we fly into the future. Straight arrow? Probably bent or warped, but bent or warped the shaft is us in flight with whatever feathers we can affix to help us fly true. Most of us want to fly true: the heart is a serious hunter. But what a mess life is-and how kids love a mess. Later on though we try to straighten up and fly right, and usually end up making a mess of love. Some do. I do. So it's my lost fields of affection and those remembered meadows of love that I want to make a map of, me the surveyor with my transit heart. Looking back on where I've been I see the roads and crossroads a lot clearer than looking up ahead. I still don't know yet quite where I'll end up, or how long the arrow has yet to fly. Beginnings though--!ike most of us I begin with my mother. We joined up right away and I got quite attached to her there in the friendly sea-watery dark, loafing the days away in the womb's welfare state. My heart first started up in that darkness, took its first beat. And first it beat for itself, then for me, then for her. Certainly I was shamelessly involved with her before I got pushed out to make it on my own, booted out into the violent light. Even so, once in the air and cradled to her breast, I grappled |