The Decline of the West, by Diane di Prima

I guess I’ll never buy a San Francisco mansion

or one on the Big Sur coast & fill it w/my friends

artists in every room writing painting composing

a big dance studio w/barres & steamy windows

wisteria tumbling over the porch & view of the

ocean on three sides

most of the friends I meant to fill it with

are dead by now & my knees are getting stiff

for so many stairs & who wd do the cooking?

I’ll never have a pottery studio complete w/a kick wheel

in a certain gazebo, or a place for lost wax casting

to watch the molten metal move in the crucible

& make those amulets I once designed

There’ll be no pentagrams set in white stone on the lawn

to invoke John Dee & his angels

I’ll probably never shout Calls in Enochian under the moon--

It’s hard enough to learn the Seven Line Prayer in Tibetan

and remember to do the Protector’s Chants at night.

No Thursday salons

No thoughtful conversations

No one driving from Santa Barbara to join our Circle

& determine if the space-time continuum is shaped like a jellyroll

No comfortable spiritual armchair either, alas, no practice

I know I can do just right & will do forever. I guess I’m just out there

in my cluttered apartment in the Western Addition

one well-strung mala, one well-knotted cord

from a distant lama

the limits of elegance

in my unkempt life

Copyright 1996 by Diana di Prima. Reprinted by permission.