I keep revising this thing in keeping with my changing sense of an ending. I don’t mean the eschaton, exactly, although this genuine possibility does disturb my unearned complacence from time to time. Nor do I mean the dread that comes of the days that mark the end of another year: “advent” is the cruelest word in these times. No, I mean the seeming end of our—my—capacity to express our fears and hopes, because they seem so empirically grounded on the one hand, and so ridiculous, on the other. The demise of democracy at the hands of a man whose best efforts would make him an average pimp? The expiration of the Atlantic’s meridional overturning circulation, the oceanic current that keeps another ice age at bay? The third world war, starting again at the border between East and West as an armed struggle over the future of the Eurasian land mass? You sound demented when you can answer such questions with real evidence, but there they are, already on the table. So, in view of a dying . . . year:
The dead of winter are still beckoning, still waiting for you,
Beyond your reckoning, beyond mine, too—
Although I know them better
Than even you.
The dead of winter are still recalling, the scars they've given you:
They remember your falling, as I do, too—
I can see it more clearly
Than even you.
The dead of winter are still rehearsing, the day they come for you,
They'll always be whispering, as I will, too—
My claim on your soul is stronger
Than even you.
The dead of winter have stopped their counting, but won’t stop calling you,
Will the numbers keep on mounting?
You cannot care, not as much as I do—
I won’t read for the ending,
Not even for you.
The dead of winter keep on turning. in the place that’s meant for you
Is it your soul that’s burning?
Is that what they see in you—
I feel it more closely
Than even you.
The dead of winter are multiplying, still in pursuit of you
It’s the children who keep on dying,
And now they’ve come for you—
I won’t try to explain it,
Not even to you.
Wow. Amazing posting. Thanks.