Let me grow lovely, growing old-
So many fine things do;
Laces, and ivory, and gold,
And silks need not be new;
And there is healing in old trees,
Old streets a glamour hold;
Why may not I, as well as these,
Grow lovely, growing old?

She was so desperately in love
that she could no longer see properly,
something had happened to her eyes,
and she blinked constantly
as if to clear them of the blur.
She saw everything through a film of salt tears,
and her voice became husky because her throat
was bathed in the irrepressible
and continuous crying
which her happiness caused her.

Now we feel no rain
For each of us will be shelter for the other.
Now we will feel no cold
For each of us will be warmth to the other
Now we are two persons
But there is one life before us.
Let us go now to enter the days of our life together.

The sun is setting. The lawns on fire.
The lost day, the lost light.
Why do I love what fades?
You who left, who were leaving,
what dark rooms do you inhabit?
Guardian of my death,
preserve my absence. I am alive.

Tell yourself
as it gets cold and gray falls from the air
that you will go on
walking, hearing
the same tune no matter where
you find yourself -
inside the dome of dark
or under the cracking white
of the moon's gaze in a valley of snow.
Tonight as it gets cold
tell yourself
what you know which is nothing
but the tune your bones play
as you keep going. And you will be able
for once to lie down under the small fire
of winter stars.
And if it happens that you cannot
go on or turn back
and you find yourself
where you will be at the end,
tell yourself
in that final flowing of cold through your limbs
that you love what you are.

I'd like to have a word
with you. Could we be alone
for a minute? I have been lying
until now. Do you believe
I believe myself? Do you believe
yourself when you believe me? Lying
is natural. Forgive me. Could we be alone
forever? Forgive us all. The word
is my enemy. I have never been alone;
bribes, betrayals. I am lying
even now. Can you believe
that? I give you my word.

Jesus got up one day a little later than usual. He has been dreaming
so deep there was nothing left in his head. What was it?
A nightmare, dead bodies walking all around him, eyes rolled
back, skin falling off. But he wasn't afraid of that. It was a beautiful
day. How 'bout some coffee? Don't mind if I do. Take a little
ride on my donkey, I love that donkey. Hell, I love everybody.

Somehow, one expects
all that food
to rise up
out of the canning jars
and off the dinner plates
anddo something,
mean something.
But, alas, it's all
just stuff and more
stuff, without pausing
for an interval
of transformation.
Even family
relationships
go begging
for any illumination.
And yet, there is competence,
there is some quiet
glitter to the surface,
a certain cleanliness,
which means next to
nothing, unless you want
to eat off the floor.

I am the only actor.
It is difficult for one woman
to act out a whole play.
The play is my life,
my solo act,
My running after the hands
and never catching up.
(The hands are out of sight -
that is, offstage.)
All I am doing onstage is running,
running to keep up,
but never making it.
Suddenly I stop running.
(This moves the plot along a bit.)
I give speeches, hundreds,
all prayers, all soliloquies.
I say absurd things like:
eggs must not quarrel with stones
or, keep your broken arm inside your sleeve
or, I am standing upright
but my shadow is crooked.
And such and such.
Many boos. Many boos.
Despite that I go on to the last lines:
To be without God is to be a snake
who wants to swallow an elephant.
The curtain falls.
The audience rushes out.
It was a bad performance.
That's because I'm the only actor
and there are few humans whose lives
will make an interesting play.
Don't you agree?

My love in her attire doth show her wit,
It doth so well become her:
For every season she hath dressings fit,
For winter, spring, and summer.
No beauty she doth miss,
When all her robes are on:
But Beauty's self she is,
When all her robes are gone.