the two short poems in the begginning of the movie "into the wild". i loved it so much i thought id share em with everyone. enjoy!
by alexander supertramp
two years, he walks the earth.
no phone, no pool, no pets, no ciggarettes.
ultimate freedom.
an extremist. an aesthetic voyager whos home is the road.
so now, after two ramblig years, comes the final and greatest adventure
the climactic battle to kill the false being within,
victoriously conclude the spiritual revolution,.
no longer to be poisoned by civilization,
he flees, and walks alone upon the land to become lost in the wild
(those who know me best know i closely identify with this guy. im longing to be freed. i need an escape!)
I go back to may (1937)
by sharon olds
i see them standing at the formal gates of their colleges
i see my father strolling out
under the ochur sandstone arch, the
red tiles glinting like bent
plates of blood behind his head, i
see my mother with a few light books at her hip
standing at the pillar made of tiny bricks,
the wrought- iron gate still open behind her, its
sword-tips aglow in the may air,
they are about to graduate, they are about to get married,
they are kids, they are dumb, all they know is they are
innocent, they would never hurt anybody.
i want to go up to them and say Stop,
dont do it--shes the wrong woman,
hes the wrong man, you are going to do things
you cannot imagine you would ever do,
you are going to do bad things to children,
you are going to suffer in ways you have not heard of,
you are going to want to die. i want to go
up to them there in he late may sunlight and say it,
her hungry pretty face turning to me,
her pitiful beautiful untouched body
but i dont do it. i want to live, i
take them up like the male and female
paper dolls and bang them together
at the hips, like chips of flint, as if to
strike sparks from them, i say
do what you are going to do, and i will tell about it.
the entire second half of the poem really resonates with me.
