I My teeth do not ache Nor do my bones break Though birdlike brittle I get a little Depressed now and then Though now then again But find in my mind What to leave behind And then I try to Maybe demented But not tormented By then being when My way out is in How I know now so I go on and go To be and to do The best of me now The rest of somehow A wonder to be I understand me Just glad to be free And I know I will Be freely me still Until I am gone So I will go on With what I have got Until I am not II Having forgotten more than I learned But having gotten there having earned The right to resist through persistence What is not me at my insistence Being as I am and stubbornly Determined to stay free purely me Securely being sure I will be Having been being will be still me Having not forgotten being who Got there but got there the hard way too How I recall anything at all Now by recovering from the fall Rising higher than I would have then If I had not been myself again Having been the only one who knew The lonely one but I did and do III Yucca Valley might not know it But there is a poet Surviving elsewhere who arrived In September it was As I remember now because Being then who survived Arriving with less of me then Knowing it was right when Having fallen rising again Though the Hi-Desert might Not know it I am here to write The best of me today The rest of me was yesterday Such neighbors as there are Might see me as a falling star Who rose again this far With watchdogs watching over me Keeping to myself here Where falling stars shine bright and clear And rightly privately No one might ever know But knowing I go on I go IV Let now be our happy-ever-after Through past fears at last through tears to laughter The laughter of the immortals like in The Magic Theater let it begin Like that somehow then and let it be now We might as well between heaven and hell And whatever else we trouble us by Having come through both now I know how I Like to live a little before I die Take the present make it good and do well Let it be now then and like that somehow Not hereafter but now for the laughter The laughter of the immortals who know Life goes on and so we might as well go Know as we go we go on even so Always the present somehow the laughter Let now be our happy-ever-after Steven Curtis Lance