An Old Cracked Tune (Stanley Kunitz)

(Really want that last couplet tattooed on my body somewhere. I first encountered this poem on the N train. Love at first read. That last stanza is a mantra I often repeat to myself. I wish I could say that much in that short of a line. For the joy of surviving... )

My name is Solomon Levi,
the desert is my home,
my mother's breast was thorny,
and father I had none.

The sands whispered, Be separate,
the stones taught me, Be hard.
I dance, for the joy of surviving,
on the edge of the road.