enjoy the moment
without making it swear
an oath to stay?
Are we doomed as Faust
to not hold one day
without closing our fist around
the throat of the poignant—
to not spend one hour
without making it a down payment
on future comparison
and certain disappointment?
In short:
must we require a thing
to be permanent
before we will agree to love it?
so that we might, by winter,
find ourselves beseeched to know
how to pass a pleasant evening
reading a poem
without our own bracing
by the time it’s half over
for the loss at its end—and then
to not spend one hour
without making it a down payment
on future comparison
and certain disappointment?
In short:
must we require a thing
to be permanent
before we will agree to love it?
If so, then so be it—but
perhaps we can observe
the color-bleach of roses
as something fair and proper;
or practice the hearing, this
perhaps we can observe
the color-bleach of roses
as something fair and proper;
or practice the hearing, this
time of year, of the gradually
dwindling hum of bees and
thinning screech of crickets,
so that we might, by winter,
find ourselves beseeched to know
how to pass a pleasant evening
reading a poem
without our own bracing
by the time it’s half over
for the loss at its end—and then
our unreasonable grieving.
