Alex Early February 2, 2024 May Sarton | Now I Become Myself Alex Early February 2, 2024 Now I become myself. It’s takenTime, many years and places;I have been dissolved and shaken,Worn other people’s faces,Run madly, as if Time were there,Terribly old, crying a warning,”Hurry, you will be dead before—“(What? Before you reach the morning?Or the end of the poem is clear?Or love safe in the walled city?)Now to stand still, to be here,Feel my own weight and density!The black shadow on the paperIs my hand; the shadow of a wordAs thought shapes the shaperFalls heavy on the page, is heard.All fuses now, falls into placeFrom wish to action, word to silence,My work, my love, my time, my faceGathered into one intenseGesture of growing like a plant.As slowly as the ripening fruitFertile, detached, and always spent,Falls but does not exhaust the root,So all the poem is, can give,Grows in me to become the song,Made so and rooted by love.Now there is time and Time is young.O, in this single hour I liveAll of myself and do not move.I, the pursued, who madly ran,Stand still, stand still, and stop the sun! — May Sarton, Now I Become Myself