The Mower BY PHILIP LARKIN

The Mower BY PHILIP LARKIN The mower stalled, twice; kneeling, I found A hedgehog jammed up against the blades, Killed. It had been in the long grass. I had seen it before, and even fed it, once. Now I had mauled its unobtrusive world Unmendably. Burial was no help: Next morning I got up and it did not. The first day after a death, the new absence Is always the same; we should be careful Of each other, we should be kind While there is still time.

The Time Around Scars by Michael Ondaatje

A girl whom I’ve not spoken to or shared coffee with for several years writes of an old scar. On her wrist it sleeps, smooth and white, the size of a leech. I gave it to her brandishing a new Italian penknife. Look, I said turning, and blood spat onto her shirt. My wife has scars like spread raindrops on knees and ankles, she talks of broken greenhouse panes and yet, apart from imagining red feet, (a nymph out of Chagall) I bring little to that scene. We remember the time around scars, they freeze irrelevant emotions and divide us from present friends. I remember this girl’s face, the widening rise of surprise. And would she moving with lover or husband conceal or flaunt it, or keep it at her wrist a mysterious watch. And this scar I then remember is a medallion of no emotion. I would meet you now and I would wish this scar to have been given with all the love that never occurred between us.

To Love Someone Long-Term Is to Attend a Thousand Funerals of the People They Used to Be - Heidi Priebe

The people they’re too exhausted to be any longer. The people they don’t recognize inside themselves anymore. The people they grew out of, the people they never ended up growing into. We so badly want the people we love to get their spark back when it burns out; to become speedily found when they are lost. But it is not our job to hold anyone accountable to the people they used to be. It is our job to travel with them between each version and to honor what emerges along the way. Sometimes it will be an even more luminescent flame. Sometimes it will be a flicker that disappears and temporarily floods the room with a perfect and necessary darkness. Source: (https://allyourprettywords.tumblr.com/)

Desiderata - Words for Life— Max Ehrmann, 1927

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story. Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism. Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass. Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy. — Max Ehrmann, 1927

Those Winter Sundays BY ROBERT HAYDEN

Sundays too my father got up early and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold, then with cracked hands that ached from labor in the weekday weather made banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him. I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking. When the rooms were warm, he’d call, and slowly I would rise and dress, fearing the chronic angers of that house, Speaking indifferently to him, who had driven out the cold and polished my good shoes as well. What did I know, what did I know of love’s austere and lonely offices? Robert Hayden, “Those Winter Sundays” from Collected Poems of Robert Hayden, edited by Frederick Glaysher. Copyright ©1966 by Robert Hayden. Reprinted with the permission of Liveright Publishing Corporation.

Tunnel by Zita Izso

One reason for our being unable to become intimate might be that we are scared of warmth; that we're afraid former confessions would emerge, like text fingered into the moisture when someone breathes against the windowpane. We might succeed if someone built a tunnel under our houses; one so long that after days of wandering we couldn't tell days and nights apart, wouldn't know when to wake up or do our routine tasks; when to eat, drink or quarrel; when to start being frightened. Now we are like those dead who are resurrected in the night. They do the same as any decent person would: they desperately try to get back to sleep. Zita Izso (Translated by Agnes Marton)

So Much by Annie Fisher

Peel back your glove, touch green, touch grain, Touch this good earth and then let go, Touch wing, touch web, touch root and rain, Peel back your glove, touch green, touch grain, Touch bud, touch curl of leaf, touch vein, Touch flint, touch fern, one flake of snow, Peel back your glove, touch green, touch grain. Touch this good earth; and then let go. ~Annie Fisher