It wouldn’t be accurate
To say, with Al Pacino,
You are who you are, since you aren’t.
You never are. And when change
Comes to take you, more you aren’t,
No matter what you once were.
But insofar as you are
Today, you are what you were,
And perhaps not very much
Yet changed. The late Didion,
Barely, only yesterday,
Observed, Many opinions
Are expressed. Few are allowed
To develop. Fewer change.
Words from the writer she was
Decades before, pretty much,
The young adult who could write,
Off the cuff, of self respect
As a kind of withering
Gaze scorching one’s own follies,
Savoring the flavor of
Those particular ashes
In her mouth. You never are
Other than the ash you were.
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