As If (Psalm 73)

Here’s a picture of the bad ones I once envied:

Everything came easily: they did not need
To work to make their living, want
A catchy line, an angle to find lovers or companions
At the dining table: tan and fit from laps and basking
Poolside, they order drinks and gaze at the deep sky,
Chuckle at the devil, protest unjust god:
Superstitions meant for dimlit losers.
They eat the land bare, suck the ocean
Dry as though they had it in their goblet, tall
And frosted, with their tongues tips swish
Strong currents of the deep.
If I painted
Such a picture for you once, just feeling
Without understanding that I envied
Not another person but a creature of my dreams,
Then my mind would curdle, heart dry up
And I’d have been the dream beast I invented.
But the real touched me, cool and smooth,
Taught me to be able to have everything,
Need nothing, like the names of things
That are not you and are not those things
Either, in a picture story song.

Laurance Wieder