Growing
By Kenneth Rexroth Who are you? Who am I? Haunted By the dead, by the dead and the past and the Falling inertia of unreal, dead Men and things. Haunted by the threat Of the impersonal, that which Never will admit the person, The closed world of things. Who are You? Coming up out of the Mineral earth, one pale leaf Unlike any other unfolding, And then another, strange, new, Utterly different, nothing I ever expected, growing Up out of my warm heart's blood. All new, all strange, all different. Your own leaf pattern, your own Flower and fruit, but fed from One root, the root of our fused flesh. I and thou, from the one to The dual, from the dual To the other, the wonderful, Unending, unfathomable Process of becoming each Our selves for each other. Left to right: Kenneth Rexroth, Allen Ginsberg, and James Laughlin.