I am

Long ago, I tasted something sweet.
It's an echo, it's a memory in retreat.
Like a feeling of fullness,
Like the knowing of quiet fortitude, of ancient heroes.
It was something I trusted somehow.
And now:
And now I am, I am, I am, I am.
I am the rise of Icarus.
I am the fall from Pegasus.
I am the lost Leander in the tide.
I am cold, alone, and set apart.
And I am warm as Hero's heart.
I am a circle
I am Saturn purified!
Once around the sun and now at last I see it!
This is what I am.

Long ago I left myself and now I try to return
As a stranger to a strange land and to the burn.
But the hollow inside me
Might be there to guide me
Home again,
Back to something sweet,
An opening, a passage way to guide me home.

-- Saturn Returns by Adam Guettel, from Myths and Hymns, 1998