The Thing Is - Ellen Bass

to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you've held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.

May - Jonathan Galassi

The backyard apple tree gets sad so soon,

takes on a used-up, feather-duster look

within a week.

The ivy’s spring reconnaissance campaign

sends red feelers out and up and down

to find the sun.

Ivy from last summer clogs the pool,

brewing a loamy, wormy, tea-leaf mulch

soft to the touch

and rank with interface of rut and rot.

The month after the month they say is cruel

is and is not.

Bob Marley

100,000 Fireflies - Stephen Merritt (of The Magnetic Fields)

I have a mandolin
I play it all night long
It makes me want to kill myself
I also have a Dobro
Made in some mountain range
Sounds like a mountain range in love
But when I turn up the tone
On my electric guitar...

I'm afraid of the dark without you close to me

I went out to the forest and caught
100,000 fireflies
As they ricochet 'round the room
They remind me of your starry eyes
Someone else's might
Not have made me so sad
But this is the worst night I ever had

'Cause I'm afraid of the dark without you close to me
Always was

You won't be happy with me
But give me one more chance
You won't be happy anyway

Why do we still live here
In this repulsive town?
All our friends are in New York

Why do we keep shrieking
When we mean soft things?
We should be whispering all the time

Tonight I've Watched - Sappho (translated by Mary Barnard)

Tonight I've watched

The moon and then
the Pleiades
go down

The night is now
half-gone; youth
goes; I am

in bed alone

Ae Fond Kiss - Robert Burns

Ae fond kiss, and then we sever;
Ae fareweel, alas, for ever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee,
Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee.
Who shall say that Fortune grieves him,
While the star of hope she leaves him?
Me, nae cheerful twinkle lights me;
Dark despair around benights me.

I'll ne'er blame my partial fancy,
Naething could resist my Nancy:
But to see her was to love her;
Love but her, and love for ever.
Had we never lov'd sae kindly,
Had we never lov'd sae blindly,
Never met -- or never parted,
We had ne'er been broken-hearted.

Fare-thee-weel, thou first and fairest!
Fare-thee-weel, thou best and dearest!
Thine be ilka joy and treasure,
Peace, Enjoyment, Love and Pleasure!
Ae fond kiss, and then we sever!
Ae fareweel, alas, for ever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee,
Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee.

Dregs - César Vallejo

     This afternoon it is raining, as never before; and I
have no desire to live, my heart.

    This afternoon is sweet. Why should it not be?
Dressed in grace and pain; dressed like a woman.

    This afternoon in Lima it is raining. And I recall
the cruel caverns of my ingratitude;
my block of ice over her poppy,
stronger than her "Don't be this way!"

    My violent black flowers; and the barbaric 
and terrible stoning; and the glacial distance.
And the silence of her dignity
with burning holy oils will put all end to it.

    So this afternoon, as never before, I am
with this owl, with this heart.

    Other women go by; and seeing me so sad,
they take on a bit of you
in the abrupt wrinkle of my deep remorse.

    This afternoon it is raining, raining hard. And I
have no desire to live, my heart!

Crying - Galway Kinnell

Crying only a little bit
is no use. You must cry
until your pillow is soaked!
Then you can get up and laugh.
Then you can jump in the shower
and splash-splash-splash!
Then you can throw open your window
and, "Ha ha! ha ha!"
And if people say, "Hey
what's going on up there?"
"Ha ha!" sing back, "Happiness
was hiding in the last tear!
I wept it! Ha ha!"

A Daughter of Eve - Christina Rossetti

A fool I was to sleep at noon,
And wake when night is chilly
Beneath the comfortless cold moon;
A fool to pluck my rose too soon,
A fool to snap my lily.

My garden-plot I have not kept;
Faded and all-forsaken,
I weep as I have never wept:
Oh it was summer when I slept,
It's winter now I waken.

Talk what you please of future spring
And sun-warm'd sweet to-morrow:—
Stripp'd bare of hope and everything,
No more to laugh, no more to sing,
I sit alone with sorrow.