Once in a rare while I step outside,
my bones are tired, my eyes dim with the scrolling years.
I sit in the somnolence of my small room,
where silence is louder than applause.
Yet somewhere — in the endless feed,
in the bright screens of young poets —
my lines are borrowed, reshaped,
their tongues tasting the syllables I once carved.
They carry my visions in their fresh bodies,
their taut voices, their restless minds.
And I, though bent and hidden, almost never
claim a share of their youth —
but my words still breathe in their mouths,
still rise in their rhythms,
still pulse in the veins of tomorrow.
My silence sleeps, but my lines still roam;
their voices make my exile home.
.