Two Poems
THE SOLUTIONS OF DREADFUL NIGHT (excerpt)
by James Thomson
We do not ask a longer term of strife,
Weakness and weariness and nameless woes:
We do not claim renewed and endless life
When this which is our torment here shall close,
An everlasting conscious inanation!
We yearn for speedy death in full fruition,
Dateless oblivion and divine repose.
A CLEAR MIDNIGHT.
by Walt Whitman
This is thy hour, O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,
Away from books, away from art, the day erased,
the lesson done,
Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the
themes thou lovest best,
Night, sleep, death and the stars.
My wife commented that what I wrote yesterday was dark. That is gratifying to hear. Yesterday I felt like Linus, when Lucy snatches the football yet again, and his expectation is upended. My sister has departed as have my parents. There is nothing that I can do about the passage of time, and the inevitable passing away. I too am aging. It is foolish to fantasize that I am an exception to everyone else. Appearances deceive for a while.
Then, the delusion begins to crack….
