As a Grown Man

And I, who as a grown man yearned,
To sit on leather, with pens of bone,
‘Round office walls, where thoughts are churned,
Perhaps an observatory to call my own.
I, who sought to unearth the past,
To rewrite it in the light of thought,
Amidst old teachers, wisdom amassed;
I, who as a man, wished naught
But to be a man—yet what is that,
In this very moment when I write,
If my voice still quivers at your sight,
If to seem mature remains my plight,
If still I linger, empty, lost. I…
I, who wished to grow and age,
And see a street bear my name at last,
Yet stand at the sill, in silent rage,
Envying those already dead.