My eyes fail with tears, my heart is troubled.
--Lamentations 2:11
I awoke this morning on the verge of tears. Was it a remnant of a dream? Was it a remnant of the day before, or of the year before? Life before. The sunlight was naked on the yard and on the branches of the impotent tree in the yard, and I made my coffee half in a dream, silently on the verge of tears. The sound of the water, and the slide of the drawer and the clinking sound of the spoon in the cup seemed insulting somehow. So careless were they. And I sat in the chair, the green plastic vaguely cold on my unclothed skin, and put the cup on the table and reached for a cigarette and began to weep, letting the tears roll down my cheek and fall on my breast. I put my head in my hands and wept. I saw dead children on a tile floor, I heard soundless shrieks of unspeakable bereavement, I considered how very kind cancer can be, for there was nothing we could have done about it Weeping is not hard once you start. It goes to its knees, as if in prayer, acknowledging that nothing whatsoever can be undone. Weeping places shame at the feet of speech. Weeping honors all the good that was not done. It is what remains, at last, of love.
Time it was,
And what a time it was
It was ...
A time of innocence
A time of confidences
Long ago ... it must be
I have a photograph
Preserve your memories
There're all that's left you
--Old Friends, Simon and Garfunkle
--Lamentations 2:11
I awoke this morning on the verge of tears. Was it a remnant of a dream? Was it a remnant of the day before, or of the year before? Life before. The sunlight was naked on the yard and on the branches of the impotent tree in the yard, and I made my coffee half in a dream, silently on the verge of tears. The sound of the water, and the slide of the drawer and the clinking sound of the spoon in the cup seemed insulting somehow. So careless were they. And I sat in the chair, the green plastic vaguely cold on my unclothed skin, and put the cup on the table and reached for a cigarette and began to weep, letting the tears roll down my cheek and fall on my breast. I put my head in my hands and wept. I saw dead children on a tile floor, I heard soundless shrieks of unspeakable bereavement, I considered how very kind cancer can be, for there was nothing we could have done about it Weeping is not hard once you start. It goes to its knees, as if in prayer, acknowledging that nothing whatsoever can be undone. Weeping places shame at the feet of speech. Weeping honors all the good that was not done. It is what remains, at last, of love.
Time it was,
And what a time it was
It was ...
A time of innocence
A time of confidences
Long ago ... it must be
I have a photograph
Preserve your memories
There're all that's left you
--Old Friends, Simon and Garfunkle
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