Was he married, did he try To support as he grew less fond of them Wife and family? No, He never suffered such a blow. Did he feel pointless, feeble and distrait, Unwanted by everyone and in the way? From his cradle he was purposeful, His bent strong and his mind full. Did he love … Continue reading
Oh mother, mother, where is happiness? They took my lover’s tallness off to war, Left me lamenting. Now I cannot guess What I can use an empty heart-cup for. He won’t be coming back here any … Continue reading
Another night sleepless, tossing in bed, reaching for someone not there. Tossed darkness– life wasted– a tossed mind convulsing all night. Another night sleepless and then– the bright dawn. Mirabai Trans. Andrew Schelling (“For Love of the Dark One”, p. 61) Continue reading
When we got home it was almost dark, Our neighbor waiting on the walk. “I’m sorry, I have bad news,” he said. “Your cat, the gray-black one, is dead. I found him by the garbage an hour ago.” “Thank you,” I said, “for letting us know.” We dug a hole in the flower bed With … Continue reading
“…it was a matter of anxious moment to her that Lisa Stillman should like her brother-in-law, or that a workman wounded in an accident should find healthy employment. She kept herself marvelously alive to all the changes that went on round her, as though she heard perpetually the ticking of a vast clock and could … Continue reading
I The moving sun-shapes on the spray, The sparkles where the brook was flowing, Pink faces, plightings, moonlit May, These were the things we wished would stay; But they were going. II Seasons of blankness as of snow, The silent bleed of a world decaying, The moan of multitudes in woe, These were … Continue reading
Three hundred nights like three hundred walls must rise between my love and me and the sea will be a black art between us. Nothing will be left but memories. O afternoons earned with suffering, nights hoping for the sight of you, fields along my way, firmament that I am seeing and losing… Final as … Continue reading
When everything finally has been wrecked and further shipwrecked, When their most ardent dream has been made hollow and unrecognizable, They will feel inside their limbs the missing shade of blue that lingers Against hills in the cooler hours before dark, and the moss at the foot of the forest When green starts to leave … Continue reading
What am I to you now that you are no longer what you used to be to me? Who are we to each other now that there is no us, now that what we once were is divided into me and you who are not one but two separate and unrelated persons except for that … Continue reading
This is the moment when you see again the red berries of the mountain ash and in the dark sky the birds’ night migrations. It grieves me to think the dead won’t see them— these things we depend on, they disappear. What will the soul do for solace then? I tell myself maybe it won’t … Continue reading
If day after day I was caught inside this muffle and hush I would notice how birches move with a lovely hum of spirits, how falling snow is a privacy warm as the space for sleeping, how radiant snow is a dream like leaving behind the body and rising into that luminous place where sometimes … Continue reading
I’m older than my father when he turned bright gold and left his body with its used-up liver in the Faulkner Hospital, Jamaica Plain. I don’t believe in the afterlife, don’t know where he is now his flesh has finished rotting from his long bones in the Jewish Cemetery—he could be the only convert under … Continue reading
What can be said in New Year rhymes, That’s not been said a thousand times? The new years come, the old years go, We know we dream, we dream we know. We rise up laughing with the light, We lie down weeping with the night. We hug the world until it stings, We curse it … Continue reading
Did you love well what very soon you left, Come home and take me in your arms and take away this stomach ache, headache, heartache. Never so full, I never was bereft so utterly. The winter evenings drift dark to the window. Not one word will make you, where you are, turn in your day, … Continue reading
Though my mother was already two years dead Dad kept her slippers warming by the gas, put hot water bottles her side of the bed and still went to renew her transport pass. You couldn’t just drop in. You had to phone. He’d put you off an hour to give him time to clear away … Continue reading
Crying only a little bit is no use. You must cry until your pillow is soaked! Then you can get up and laugh. Then you can jump in the shower and splash-splash-splash! Then you can throw open your window and, “Ha ha! ha ha!” And if people say, “Hey what’s going on up there?” … Continue reading
I have walked through many lives, some of them my own, and I am not who I was, though some principle of being abides, from which I struggle not to stray. When I look behind, as I am compelled to look before I can gather strength to proceed on my journey, I see the … Continue reading
‘Item I gyve unto my wife my second best bed…’ (from Shakespeare’s will) The bed we loved in was a spinning world of forests, castles, torchlight, clifftops, seas where he would dive for pearls. My lover’s words were shooting stars which fell to earth as kisses on these lips; my body now a softer … Continue reading
And I carried to that emptiness between us the birds that had been calling out all night. I carried an old bicycle, a warm meal, some time to talk. I would have brought them to you sooner but was afraid your own hopelessness would keep you crouched there. If you spring up, let it … Continue reading
One day it will vanish, how you felt when you were overwhelmed by her, soaping each other in the shower, or when you heard the news of his death, there in the T-Bone diner on Queens Boulevard amid the shouts of short-order cooks, Armenian, oblivious. One day one thing and then a fear other will … Continue reading
A DAMSEL'S COMPENDIUM 