Like a fawn from the arrow, startled and wild, A woman swept by us, bearing a child; In her eye was the night of a settled despair, And her brow was o’ershaded with anguish and care.
She was nearing the river—in reaching the brink, She heeded no danger, she paused not to think! For she is a mother—her child is a slave— And she’ll give him his freedom, or find him a grave!
’Twas a vision to haunt us, that innocent face— So pale in its aspect, so fair in its grace; As the tramp of the horse and the bay of the hound, With the fetters that gall, were trailing the ground!
When my mother She who is not All at once Was a young girl Who she was I could see Before the War Waits to be My mother Reading sad books Yet she is In eternity By the river Already I told her Sometimes, she Mother She always Looked up, wisely Whose child Would be But did not dream Though not yet The one
I However the image enters its force remains within my eyes rockstrewn caves where dragonfish evolve wild for life, relentless and acquisitive learning to survive
Tulsidas, the poet, was wandering, deep in thought, by the Ganges, in that lonely spot where they burn their dead. He found a woman sitting at the feet of the corpse of her dead husband, gaily dressed as for a wedding. She rose as she saw him, bowed to him, and said, "Permit me, Master, with your blessing, to follow my husband to heaven." "Why such hurry, my daughter?" asked Tulsidas. "Is not this earth also His who made heaven?" "For heaven I do not long," said the woman. "I want my husband." Tulsidas smiled and said to her, "Go back to your home, my child. Before the month is over you will find your husband." The woman went back with glad hope. Tulsidas came to her every day and gave her high thoughts to think, till her heart was filled to the brim with divine love. When the month was scarcely over, her neighbours came to her, asking, "Woman, have you found your husband?" The widow smiled and said, "I have." Eagerly they asked, "Where is he?" "In my heart is my lord, one with me," said the woman.
When he would not return to fine garments and good food, to his houses and his people, Loingseachan told him, “Your father is dead.” “I’m sorry to hear it,” he said. “Your mother is dead,” said the lad. “All pity for me has gone out of the world.” “Your sister, too, is dead.” “The mild sun rests on every ditch,” he said; “a sister loves even though not loved.” “Suibhne, your daughter is dead.” “And an only daughter is the needle of the heart.” “And Suibhne, your little boy, who used to call you “Daddy”—he is dead.” “Aye,” said Suibhne, “that’s the drop that brings a man to the ground.” He fell out of the yew tree; Loingseachan closed his arms around him and placed him in manacles.—AFTER THE MIDDLE-IRISH ROMANCE, THE MADNESS OF SUIBHNE
On the metro, I have to ask a young woman to move the packages beside her to make room for me; she’s reading, her foot propped on the seat in front of her, and barely looks up as she pulls them to her. I sit, take out my own book—Cioran, The Temptation to Exist—and notice her glancing up from hers to take in the title of mine, and then, as Gombrowicz puts it, she “affirms herself physically,” that is, becomes present in a way she hadn’t been before: though she hasn’t moved, she’s allowed herself to come more sharply into focus, be more accessible to my sensual perception, so I can’t help but remark her strong figure and very tan skin—(how literally golden young women can look at the end of summer.) She leans back now, and as the train rocks and her arm brushes mine she doesn’t pull it away; she seems to be allowing our surfaces to unite: the fine hairs on both our forearms, sensitive, alive, achingly alive, bring news of someone touched, someone sensed, and thus acknowledged, known.
I understand that in no way is she offering more than this, and in truth I have no desire for more, but it’s still enough for me to be taken by a surge, first of warmth then of something like its opposite: a memory—a girl I’d mooned for from afar, across the table from me in the library in school now, our feet I thought touching, touching even again, and then, with all I craved that touch to mean,
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