Still With Me

I would ask you to come with me a while.
I know you have your own things going on,
And this may be a bit too much right now.

The habit of adapting comes from living.
Being alive assumes when change occurs
Each living thing succeeds or fails; the future
Belongs to those that pass along those traits
Which worked through changes better, but not best.
Only a small advantage, smaller, better,
A preference for parsimoniousness.

These thoughts occurred to me while I made up my bed,
Even as songs played in my head,
And other memories associated with
Lyrics or music added pith.

This process seems to scorn efficiency
Elsewhere so obvious, and yet if we
Consider closer how integrated
These strains must be to be so coordinated.

Behavior is layered, each act and thought is full of echoes,
And haunted with ancestral ghosts of origins
Emerging in the moment unannounced.

With some of this no doubt we have a choice,
But when I talk to strangers I still hear my mother’s voice,
And when I ring the washcloth out after a shower
I cannot help but think about my mother,
How she did this same thing the way I do.
Why this recurs for me I have no clue.

The long hairs from my last girlfriend have long since ceased
To turn up on the vacuum cleaner’s brush.
Exactly when this change occurred I do not know
But I know one day some years back the hair
Was not there anymore, and that is how these things
Come and go in our lives, our minds, and we ourselves.

KLK
5/23/2026