compendium of universal human situations

For them there was really nothing sad. But though they rejoiced in the nest they kept, One had to be versed in country things Not to believe the phoebes wept.

If "compression is the first grace of style," you have it. Contractility is a virtue as modesty is a virtue. It is not the acquisition of any one thing that is able to adorn, or the incidental quality that occurs as a concomitant of something well said, that we value in style, but the principle that is hid: in the absence of feet, "a method of conclusions;" "a knowledge of principles," in the curious phenomenon of your occipital horn.

We were very tired, we were very merry, We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry. We hailed, “Good morrow, mother!” to a shawl-covered head, And bought a morning paper, which neither of us read; And she wept, “God bless you!” for the apples and pears, And we gave her all our money but our subway fares.

The Lord did not want to appear addled, but what was the plan his sons were referring to exactly?

When I got to the airport I rushed up to the desk, bought a ticket, ten minutes later they told me the flight was cancelled, the doctors had said my father would not live through the night and the flight was cancelled. A young man with a dark brown moustache told me another airline had a nonstop leaving in seven minutes. See that elevator over there, well go down to the first floor, make a right, you'll see a yellow bus, get off at the second Pan Am terminal, I ran, I who have no sense of direction raced exactly where he'd told me, a fish slipping upstream deftly against the flow of the river. I jumped off that bus with those bags I had thrown everything into in five minutes, and ran, the bags wagged me from side to side as if to prove I was under the claims of the material, I ran up to a man with a flower on his breast, I who always go to the end of the line, I said Help me. He looked at my ticket, he said Make a left and then a right, go up the moving stairs and then run. I lumbered up the moving stairs, at the top I saw the corridor, and then I took a deep breath, I said goodbye to my body, goodbye to comfort, I used my legs and heart as if I would gladly use them up for this, to touch him again in this life. I ran, and the bags banged against me, wheeled and coursed in skewed orbits, I have seen pictures of women running, their belongings tied in scarves grasped in their fists, I blessed my long legs he gave me, my strong heart I abandoned to its own purpose, I ran to Gate 17 and they were just lifting the thick white lozenge of the door to fit it into the socket of the plane. Like the one who is not too rich, I turned sideways and slipped through the needle's eye, and then I walked down the aisle toward my father. The jet was full, and people's hair was shining, they were smiling, the interior of the plane was filled with a mist of gold endorphin light, I wept as people weep when they enter heaven, in massive relief. We lifted up gently from one tip of the continent and did not stop until we set down lightly on the other edge, I walked into his room and watched his chest rise slowly and sink again, all night I watched him breathe.

4 Last evening we went dancing and I broke your leg. Forgive me. I was clumsy and I wanted you here in the wards, where I am the doctor!

Love is dead in us if we forget the virtues of an amulet   and quick surprise.

Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly,   Asleep on the black trunk, Blowing like a leaf in green shadow.   Down the ravine behind the empty house,   The cowbells follow one another   Into the distances of the afternoon.   To my right, In a field of sunlight between two pines,   The droppings of last year’s horses   Blaze up into golden stones. I lean back, as the evening darkens and comes on.   A chicken hawk floats over, looking for home. I have wasted my life.

Like some dreams, they appear, then reappear, cloistered in the space of their own wounding, their public mourning, their gravity's gray coat. Even at a distance, as if drawn by being seen, they come straight at you, the almost-elegant woman in the aisle, the tall young bird-like silent weeping man. And no one need have died, no one you know, to know their voices and half-faces, the scent of the spirit passing, for whom blood on the door or blessing means nothing. But, then, everyone died or didn't, who calls to you in sleep after your back is turned. In the parable, like the dream, you're all the characters, though come the day, in real life, you must choose.

I wish you were here, dear, in this hemisphere, as I sit on the porch sipping a beer. It's evening, the sun is setting; boys shout and gulls are crying. What's the point of forgetting If it's followed by dying?

PINK ON THE CEILING— blue-gray in the eaves. The doves are mumbling. The fall of the leaves. My eyes love yours. Hold my hand, please.

Worpswede, near Bremen July 16, 1903

When you came, you were like red wine and honey, And the taste of you burnt my mouth with its sweetness. Now you are like morning bread, Smooth and pleasant. I hardly taste you at all for I know your savour, But I am completely nourished.

It didn't behave like anything you had ever imagined. The wind tore at the trees, the rain fell for days slant and hard. The back of the hand to everything. I watched the trees bow and their leaves fall and crawl back into the earth. As though, that was that. This was one hurricane I lived through, the other one was of a different sort, and lasted longer. Then I felt my own leaves giving up and falling. The back of the hand to everything. But listen now to what happened to the actual trees; toward the end of that summer they pushed new leaves from their stubbed limbs. It was the wrong season, yes, but they couldn't stop. They looked like telephone poles and didn't care. And after the leaves came blossoms. For some things there are no wrong seasons. which is what I dream of for me.

In part to verify a date, and in part just to pass the time, last night I picked up a volume of Ptolemaic inscriptions and began reading. Those endless poems of praise and flattery all sound the same. All the men are brilliant, great and good, mighty benefactors; most wise in all their undertakings. The same for the women of the dynasty, all the Berenices and Cleopatras, wonderful, each and every one. When I managed to find the date in question, I'd have put the book aside had a brief mention of King Caesarion, an insignificant note really, not suddenly caught my eye... Ah, there you stood, with that vague charm of yours. And since history has devoted just a few lines to you, I had more freedom to fashion you in my mind's eye... I made you handsome, capable of deep feeling. My art gave your face an appealing, dreamlike beauty. In fact, I imagined you so vividly last night, that when my lamp went out—I let it go out on purpose— I actually thought you had come into my room; you were there, standing before me, just as you would have looked in defeated Alexandria, pale and tired, ideal in your sorrow, still hoping for mercy from those vicious men who kept on whispering 'too many Caesars.'

I sharpened knives All night. To welcome you In the brilliance of their blades, And among them, My love sparkles For your eyes only.

You weren’t well or really ill yet either; just a little tired, your handsomeness tinged by grief or anticipation, which brought to your face a thoughtful, deepening grace. I didn’t for a moment doubt you were dead. I knew that to be true still, even in the dream. You’d been out--at work maybe?-- having a good day, almost energetic. We seemed to be moving from some old house where we’d lived, boxes everywhere, things in disarray: that was the story of my dream, but even asleep I was shocked out of the narrative by your face, the physical fact of your face: inches from mine, smooth-shaven, loving, alert. Why so difficult, remembering the actual look of you? Without a photograph, without strain? So when I saw your unguarded, reliable face, your unmistakable gaze opening all the warmth and clarity of you--warm brown tea--we held each other for the time the dream allowed. Bless you. You came back, so I could see you once more, plainly, so I could rest against you without thinking this happiness lessened anything, without thinking you were alive again.