A Qualified Tribute to an Enviable Buffoon

A Qualified Tribute

To an Enviable Buffoon

 

Voltaire famously said: “God is a comedian

Playing to an audience that is afraid to laugh.”

 

But if that is so, I do not think that the Almighty is all that funny �"

Especially when it comes to subjecting me to the high drama

 

Of unsolicited physical change,

 

Which is different from spiritual or intellectual change

Because it rarely, if ever, turns out for the good.

 

Yet my chimerical adolescence was an ugly

But gratifying exception to that rule.

 

I transitioned from the ideals and wondrous visions of make-believe

To the shocking reality of knowing what grown-ups really think of each other

 

Worse, I had a rebellious new body that demanded my attention

And in every instance had ambitions of its own.

 

What I was taught at home

Became the subject of scorn

 

For malicious half-wits

Who may have been only a bit

Smarter or “cooler” than I was.

 

And what I had come to revere

Was degraded by the prurient repartee

Of my overseers at Henry’s De Luxe Hamburgers

And many other adults who were supposed to be

Appropriate role models for a working-class kid.

 

I was on my own,

 

And everything

 

Was up to me,

 

Even though

I lacked the resources

And particularly the will

To make logical decisions.

 

Many sought to make a fool of me,

But many more were made happy

To see me make a fool of myself.

 

But I had something that the world envied

To the point of pitiable existential madness:

 

The ability to live from moment to moment,

Oblivious to my mortality or anyone else’s.

 

 I could jump over fences and run cruel gauntlets

With astounding indifference to would-be tormentors.

And I could fall in love several times during any given week.

 

I was a nincompoop,

 

But I could do anything

 

Faster, better,

And more joyously

Than I can today �"

 

 I was me when I liked being me

More than I presently do.