(Despair)

Just two brief excerpts, things that I can and cannot say; because I have slept and must go out, have had my coffee and my yogurt parfait, though they neglected to bring me toast; because someday we must all die; there is always, at the end, loss; and light, and the absence of light, and tissues caught on barbed wire blowing beside the field; and sheep who gather around, and bulls; and photographs of rivers and the Eiffel Tower, and the churches and the gargoyles in their places glowing yellow; and I was able to touch, alone, the inky dark of the Seine; and will be off again, will see sky again, even sunsets from the tops of clouds.

"I love you first because you wait, because

For your own sake, I cannot write

Beyond these words. I love you for these words

That sting and creep like insects and leave filth.

(…)

And all your imperfections and perfections

And all your magnitude of grace

And all this love explained and unexplained

Is just a breath."

- from V-Letter, by Karl Shapiro

"Not, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;

Not untwist- slack they may be- these last strands of man

In me or, most weary, cry I can no more. I can;

Can something, hope, wish day to come, not choose not to be."

- from Carrion Comfort, by Gerard Manley Hopkins