Carl Adamshick, born 1969, is the co-founder of Tavern Books. He is 2010 winner of the Walt Whitman Award and the William Stafford poet-in-residence at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon.
EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS CAN BE CALLED AGING
Carl Adamshick
I have more love than ever.
Our kids have kids soon to have kids.
I need them. I need everyone
to come over to the house,
sleep on the floor, the couch
in the front room. I need noise,
love, the noise of love,
too many people in too small a place.
I need dancing, the spilling
of drinks, loud pronouncements
over music, verbal sparring,
broken dishes and wealth.
I need it all flying apart.
My friends to slam against me,
to hold me, to say they love me.
I need mornings to ask for favors
and forgiveness. I need to give,
have all my emotions rattled,
my family to be greedy,
to keep coming, to keep asking
and taking. I need no resolution,
just the constant turmoil of living.
Give me the bottom of the river,
all the unadorned, unfinished,
unpraised moments, one
good turn on the luxuriant wheel.