Cobra Snake For A Necktie

I have walked
through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle
of being abides,
from which I struggle
not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones
dwindling toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned campsites,
over which the scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself
a tribe out of
my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart
be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind,
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn.
I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact
to go wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed
through the wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
Live in the layers,
not on the litter.
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.

--Stanley Kunitz