Friday, February 1, 2013

Untitled

It hurts
when love dies.
When love is deep,
it hurts deeply--
more deeply maybe than you thought
anything would ever hurt
again.

But with time,
the spaces between the moments when it hurts
get longer,
the moments themselves become
less devastating,
till eventually you come to associate them
with a sad sweetness
that has as much in common
with love
as it does with grief.

I wish you long
spaces in between,
and may you carry into them
all of that sweetness,
and only enough sadness to attest
the risk that's being taken
by everyone who loves you.


Jack McCarthy

1 comment:

Unknown said...

try Liberty by Paul Eluard

Liberty


On my notebooks from school

On my desk and the trees

On the sand on the snow

I write your name



On every page read

On all the white sheets

Stone blood paper or ash

I write your name



On the golden images

On the soldier’s weapons

On the crowns of kings

I write your name



On the jungle the desert

The nests and the bushes

On the echo of childhood

I write your name



On the wonder of nights

On the white bread of days

On the seasons engaged

I write your name



On all my blue rags

On the pond mildewed sun

On the lake living moon

I write your name



On the fields the horizon

The wings of the birds

On the windmill of shadows

I write your name



On the foam of the clouds

On the sweat of the storm

On dark insipid rain

I write your name



On the glittering forms

On the bells of colour

On physical truth

I write your name



On the wakened paths

On the opened ways

On the scattered places

I write your name



On the lamp that gives light

On the lamp that is drowned

On my house reunited

I write your name



On the bisected fruit

Of my mirror and room

On my bed’s empty shell

I write your name



On my dog greedy tender

On his listening ears

On his awkward paws

I write your name



On the sill of my door

On familiar things

On the fire’s sacred stream

I write your name



On all flesh that’s in tune

On the brows of my friends

On each hand that extends

I write your name



On the glass of surprises

On lips that attend

High over the silence

I write your name



On my ravaged refuges

On my fallen lighthouses

On the walls of my boredom

I write your name



On passionless absence

On naked solitude

On the marches of death

I write your name



On health that’s regained

On danger that’s past

On hope without memories

I write your name



By the power of the word

I regain my life

I was born to know you

And to name you



LIBERTY