It Is Unbearably Painful For The Soul

But Here, In The Murk Of Conflagration, Where Scarcely A Friend Is Left To Know We, The Survivors, Do Not Flinch From Anything, Not From A Single Blow. Surely The Reckoning Will Be Made After The Passing Of This Cloud. We Are The People Without Tears, Straighter Than You ... More Proud.

I Know Beginnings, I Know Endings Too, And Life-in-death, And Something Else I'd Rather Not Recall Just Now.

The Whole Time I Was Hoping My Silence Would Fit Yours And Exclamation Marks Would Gently Float Across Time And Space So That Boundaries Would Be Crossed; The Whole Time I Was Praying You Would Read My Eyes And Understand What I Was Never Able To Understand. See, We Were Never About Butterflies. We’ve Always Been About Burning Stars. All About Us Is Unearthly And Radiant.

We Aged A Hundred Years, And This Happened In A Single Hour: The Short Summer Had Already Died, The Body Of The Ploughed Plains Smoked.

Who Will Grieve For This Woman? Does She Not Seem Too Insignificant For Our Concern? Yet In My Heart I Never Will Deny Her, Who Suffered Death Because She Chose To Turn.