I am certainly feeling the loss of the previous topic... there were some truly beautiful thoughts and images floating around in there.

yes, i know, sorry for no warning.

no 'sorry's Wolf -- I am merely musing selfish thoughts.

as were those of us who posted in there...

stealing someone else's words... (from a small poetry book I discovered in a even smaller used bookstore some years ago) SHE TELLS THE TRUTH by Ruth Danon Invention is not enough. These are facts and you need to know them. In 50 million years Los Angeles will crowd into the Aleutian Islands and chill slowly into the Arctic night. The Red Sea will dwarf the Mediterranean; the timing will be better. There will be no new oceans and no new continents but Oaxaca, where you and I have never been together, will sink gently into the water. By then we will have known each other through millions of lifetimes. Maybe we'd be wiser and we'd know what to do. The equator is where it is because that position is half way between the poles. The prime meridian was an arbitrary choice. Columbus thought the world looked like a pear and he was right. He had no reason for this speculation. Some facts are worth explaining. Right now I can think only of the wind in Chicago and how I would rather do anything with my life than hurt yours. There's more to making a map than taking a few aerial photographs. Invention isn't enough and on this sea green planet there's more going on than you know, more than you can imagine. How good a map is depends on the ability of the mapper to interpret what she sees on the surface. I'm having a harder time with your face than I had with the moon. When continents bump up against each other they leave scars and ridges on the earth's crust. There's a slow bleeding of lava onto the ocean floor. It took centuries to create the delicate instruments of measurement used by cartographers. Still, triangulation from a known point remains the basis of geodesy.

"maybe we'd be wiser and we'd know what to do"... (i liked this poem very much, stacey)

thanks, Stacey...

Sorry And so you assumed I said A thing. You flatter yourself. I was lured by mere words. In my heart, I knew them to Be that and that alone. So Speak naught of it, tis over And I have learned and you have too. Words can be misconstrued Even by the sincerest ear.

(and the most loving heart...)

(hey) contemplating one or other lying noble roman searching the bottom of the row (of the history shelf) absently even less aware than usually i am turned abruptly to my right without thinking or glancing not giving a damn (for oncoming traffic you know) i nearly plowed her to the ground (poor thing, nearly murdered randomly on a saturday afternoon at waldenbooks by a book-drunk stranger who should've had his browsing licence qualified long ago)- a pretty one, she was- kind eyes, brown and wide and an amused ironic mouth- and a smile that graced even reckless men that menaced chain-store aisles- mumbled apologies, so little aware was i- 'no problem', said she, looking up at me, still smiling as she squeezed on by- and i- and i- i looked at her- began the descent into my favored hell- nothing beneath me to break my fall- just fell and fell and fell into the place where's kept her face and i reduced and she was not and nothing nothing nothing nothing was i. contemplating romans at waldenbooks nothing was all.

nice (been there and done that myself), as is seeing you around, Nick... you ought to go check out http://www.spring.net/yapp-bin/restricted/browse/screwed/all I can see your Celtic barbs working wonders in there...

good piece and welcome back

thanks, y'all (ummm, should've been "nothing was all"... stead of "nothing was i"... hmmm, yeah...) (freudian slip i suppose)... checking the site out, wer... thanks

(no title) If delusion it is It's of the purest degree. And though it less It belongs to me, And purely. And if it so- If less is Me- if more Believing illusioning Fantasy- Was so, from the start. But even so- EVEN SO- Cannot cannot Dissuade diminish Deter dismiss This dimming damned Deficiency (that beats in me). Delusion, so pure Is true. And enough (in you). All (in me).

so how long is it gonna be before i have to kill this topic? (re: words floating around out there) this piece has a lot of d's in it....almost a tongue twister, but done in your style-nicely

sheesh, no offense....

geez louise (none taken) you make a relevent point re:'words floating around' and all... i am appropriately chastened... nearly coherent (sometimes happens, brief interludes, coincidence with expression rare but occasional)... (sorry)

good to see you around. you doing ok?

yup... (and you?)

just busy as a beaver (almost literally-no trees down on my account)

maybe, but it's still a helluva dam, Wolf!

haha!!!

wrote this tonight... has no title... never forgiven this earth that gave and took you away. cold careening amoral rock that hid you under dirt. never forgiven the boy who loved Love more than love could take. who for the sake of Love and Pure- spent your love away. it's all finished, that time ago. unforgiven, all we turn and spin and breathe and be as if you hadn't been. what more to say, that isn't said? nothing left but for that i've bled and left undone. sleep, and well, my dreaming one- and the face of night which is become the ghost of all your days but touched will merge to one- one light and such as star or sun as heaven's never seen- till you are free (of all, of me) and dreaming better dreams.

very sad

beautiful

Title it. Publish it. Write more!!

nick, are we going to hear from you ever again after you move?

yep, i imagine... sure i'll be online purty quick... (and i'm gonna miss austin really really bad... just leaving texas is traumatic, too... every time i've done it in the past, and i've done it a couple of times, i was really homesick... and it's funny, really, cause there's so many things about this state that embarrass me... but damn i love it) (not so bad moving off to colorado, i should think... being that colorado's rightfully a part of texas anyway) oh, and thank y'all for what you said bout the poem... it's nice, i appreciate it

(damn) from belly cross to nervous thigh lingering at the gentle swell of your hip- the subtle ripening angle there the delicate sway dancing girl swimming in sheets writhing, to rhythm writ on wanting skin from wanting finger tips

I like it. you ought to publish.

erotic, nick....

wrote this yesterday... sort of a bridge/continuation thing for some ideas banging around a few months now... has no title, really... 1 (rememberance) gape-mouthed flailing at a scorning moon light entered in. stars ground to vapor dreams then swallowed full light the way to dark leeching lessening coming thick and dull and blunt as failing fingertip's reaching fumbling grip- the waste of mind the want of heart thick as droning moments ticking dissonant parts rigoured- not bidden or aware (no matter. it is on the air) the thing impends. and so more it is than ken can coalesce to even one idea of might or would. But closing eyes, waking, could (would and did) forget. And Dream can mingle every all- can bleed into some better whole- and falter, at it's end. It too, must serve that best unto- so impervious is unconcious to- that damned impend. Certain, i within the curse of darkening mind and Reason's worth then reason's final utter waste- humans blind epochs dead- centuries strung from undreaming heads (the dull the purposed men) flung from out the hands of we asleep, in rhapsodic reveries of never-certain dreams (memory, transfixed and steeped within some lingering lulling imagining sin of Never Was and Never Be). Certain to empty empty to waste waste to absence of every trace of thinking's dreams or dreaming's thought- 'til we are become what others be- bought from out a legacy of never-yielding need. 2 (intent) Upon this city in sleep (not)light descends and casts a pall of forgetfulness over each roof. Morning bends what's left, within that silence- each bitter reproof of belief conformed with dying days. And promises, remembered in the dreaming haze are mirrored in the imaged words of men- reforming, receding- becoming, again connected-seeming days. � Perversity, this. Time forms whole; and sensation diminishes, every one. Replenish each, in it's time. Uttering each- let metered rhyme transform the seeming way. Absolve them all, from their curse and by one thread of slender verse dissolve corrupted day. 3 (consolation) cold here now. fading light through the square little window above my bed mirrors in aspect cold- rhythms dead- imaged chaos in my head. i could- in a chosen instant could- decompose. each wasted breath, thought, want, sensory perception beating there- wash away. that i don't- this instant, next- means some little thing less. being man of Man- fool of Fools- given, thus am to subversion's rule- i subvert too. no less than any- undoubtedly so- this is the single rule of that i know: follow that light, however it goes- follow it, whether it to some store of love mislaid in a dreaming heart or within the blackest waste of that some way come dark- follow, whether you live at midnight or noon, whether your god speaks sun or moon- follow that light, dissolving through every spiralling eternity misspent upon your disappearing soul- (it is there to go then to know- finally Finally FINALLY know- each little thing that's left to know) 4 (postscript) ("remember him poor dreaming thing- didn't know, from one to next wherefore to think or go or be- he was swallowed up, finally, in his goddamn poetry pass the potatoes won't you please?")

i lose myself in the words sometimes nick your words can make me feel so lonely, so loved, so hopeless... they are not meant for me yet the come across so forcefully i sometimes dream about the images thank you for sharing again

Nice to be able to read your stuff again, Nick. Thank you.

That was good. I was sorry to see it end.

thanks y'all your words are encouraging, and appreciated (the words are meant for anyone that braves them... only hope the images/dreams aren't too difficult to endure)

nothing, I think, is too difficult to endure with the right words...

nick, they've created new characters in my mind... i think about them and they've actually triggered a few brief verses of my own creation. (have you moved?)

that's really cool stacey... thanks for telling me that... (you mind telling me what kind of characters you mean? and i know that you've been sort of reticent bout posting your own verses... but if you ever did, know that i... everyone... would feel honored to read them) far as moving, just half-way... currently in houston, trying to wrap up some outstanding business... still have my apartment in rollingwood till the end of the month, hotel room in vancouver, where we'll probably stay till summer... this past months, been dividing my time between there and austin, but should be there more or less fulltime before christmas...

(I'd like to second Nick's aside, Stace)

(pretending I'm ignoring you both, although am incredibly honored by your interest... still thinking about violating that false sense of security I hold so dear and near)

(and after all we've done...would it help to beg?)

I would also like to see some of your poetry, Stacey.

ok, this piece probably doesn't belong here, but it is about loss and it's new.... I have no poems to write Gone are they from my muse. Lacking inspiration, only excuses Flow from my pen and I waste Precious energy to appease The empty paper that I long To fill up with sounds. Yet I keep marking the lines With empty, lonely sentences. Is it to prove that I write? To enjoy fulfilment from my labor? What a lie to Vanity! And have we not all lost A moment or two to Time? So is this it? My talent Truly gone away forever? Or a mere lull in my Movement through Life?

just a lull (i'm sure of it)

thanks sweetie!

once again, I'd have to agree with Nick...

*hugs*

alright, stacey, we're still waiting for your poetry! (and yes, the muse of mine is still AWOL)

how're yall? been gone awhile... been pretty much offline, mostly... living in seattle... (miss texas a lot)... anyway... it's august... the twenty-fifth marks twenty years... so... this is for teri... there was a park here once. oleander bushes and ponderosa pines. a seesaw, missing a bolt- shimmying action, good for a jolt, if you weren't ready, coming down. swings were...over there. the type with plastic seats, weathered black- affixed to squeaking chains that screamed to heaven and back- over and over again when the northside kids let out of school at 3pm. and she liked the swings but just to sit sometimes and think. or gently rock as we would talk when i first began to know her, then (and she was fifteen). we played horse sometimes (between horsing around) on the half-moon court with the rusted hoop and the chain-link net. will never forget the trinkling, swishing sound of 'e' rolling in that first time we played (when i let her win. and no better proof of love nor more profound has ever been than that). it seemed an eternity that day enduring, to that kiss. she was standing with her back against a crooked tallow tree and her head was raised, just slightly anticipating me. such breathless terror persuading lips those lips one foot opposed could, in this life, or any, desire the touch of a thing composed so poorly, as this trembling mouth. but when i worked the nerve at length to form my lips with hers- i found therein my moment and bound my love to hers and to every fragile thing that is- then's not. and tied myself to stars. no park here now. the city deemed this place in need of further cement. and too many trees detracts from the spirit of urban renewal, i guess. but nothing's static. everything goes- changes, to some lesser/greater/different thing. whether it's the languid thoughts of a poet replacing a living girl or a parking meter for a swing everything alters and we endure from change to brutal change. convicted, as we are, in what is- but still connected and buffered by stars. yeah... that's the end of that... gonna re-post one i posted awile back, if y'all don't mind... never forgiven this earth that gave and took you away. cold careening amoral rock that hid you under dirt. never forgiven the boy who loved Love more than love could take. who for the sake of Love and Pure- spent your love away. all was finished, that time ago. unforgiven, all we turn and spin and breathe and be as if you hadn't been. what more to say, that isn't said? nothing left but for that i've bled and left undone sleep, and well, my dreaming one- and the face of night which is become the ghost of all your days but touched will merge to one- one light, and such as star or sun that heaven's never seen- till you are free (of all, of me) dreaming better dreams. anyway... twenty years... hard to believe...

thanks for trusting us with it again, nick. glad to see you back, please come by more often *hugs*

Painful and profound, Nick. My belated sympathies for something too soon taken from you. Thank you for sharing.

thanks, Nick, just drank a toast for her again... and I second Wolf in telling you to bring your butt around here more often...

and I third it... (drinkin' already?!?! I'm envious...) ./

thanks yall... we're not drinking tonight, though... (at least not yet)... paula read at the world poetry cafe, in vancouver, earlier... (she read 'sir'... knocked 'em dead... she's been reading a great deal, both in vancouver and in seattle)... now she's playing pool (not exactly knocking 'em dead)(but she's enthusiastic)... anyway... yeah, that's that, i guess...

congrats to paula! btw, I noticed living in the northwest hasn't taken the Texan outta ya, just the apostrophe outta ya'll... what about you nick?? reading? writing? working? playing?

I guess I gotta drawl "y'all" to fit in here. I noticed most--but not all--of the poetry here is original--and quite good I might add. I think this is quite good (or I wouldn't post it) but it isn't original. Oh, well. It IS a poem of loss. When You are Old When you are old and gray and full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of the soft look Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true, But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, And loved the sorrows of your changing face; And bending down beside the glowing bars, Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled And paced upon the mountains overhead And hid his face amid a crowd of stars. --W. B. Yeats (when you're not as talented as Nick, Paula, or Wolf, cite a master...)

Lovely, John. You cannot be talented in ALL the arts...you are mortal, after all. However, before I swallow that modesty whole I might remind you that elsewhere on this conference there are original poems by you - very good ones, too. No false modesty here, I beg you!

Thank you all. I am no master either, so bring this to the table: It might be lonelier Without the Loneliness - I'm so accustomed to my Fate - Perhaps the Other - Peace - Would interrupt the Dark - And crowd the little Room - Too scant - by Cubits - to contain The Sacrament - of Him - I am not used to Hope - It might intrude upon - Its sweet parade - blaspheme the place - Ordained to Suffering - It might be easier To fail - with Land in Sight - Than gain - My Blue Peninsula - To perish - of Delight - Emily Dickinson, 1862

Amazing that Dickinson only published somewhere between 8 and 11 poems in her own lifetime and those were edited (not to her satisfaction). Thank God, someone mined the "gold" she left in her steamer trunk!

(and you can't sing it to the tune of The Yellow Rose of Texas... YEA!!)

...or the New York City version..The Yellow Rows of Taxis. (sorry...)

funny! i like it!

Space Available In the chill before dawn when the alarm clock clatters for my attention and the rooster insists he spoke first I snap out of my rapid-eye reverie. Sometimes I reach out to stroke the vacant place where your hair made the down inside the now lonely pillow jealous of its softness. --John Burnett, copyright 1993

MMMmmm... I like...

Thanks, Stacey.

I am getting painful intimacy here again...perhaps I should read these when I am old and jaded. Lovely, John...I am so sorry!

Thank you...my poetry professor (Alan McNarie) made me write one that doesn't rhyme--he always preferred free verse and I always seem to write stuff with rhyme and rhythm...it was therapy (the subject matter, not the free verse) when I wrote it...now I actually like it.

Poignant and evocative, John.

Your professor, Alan McNarie, has written some really fantastic stuff. You need to put some of it in Poetry in the appropriate places...please!

He is a terrific poet...he's also very territorial about his stuff. I would have to contact him first. He's been a little scarce--and way underemployed lately. The university screwed up when they didn't give him tenure.

You're kidding!!! Why was he denied tenure when we have sodden jerks here with no value sitting on their okoles and not inspiring either student or colleague... makes me furious!

I believe there was some jealousy among two professors on his tenure committee. One said that he wasn't helpful enough with ESL students (he had a complaint from a loud disgruntled Korean student) and the other said that he hadn't authored enough "scholarly articles in refereed professional journals." Amazing...and sad. At the time, his first novel had just won the prestigious Pushcart Small Press award and he has published dozens of poems in nationally recognized literary reviews. Scholarly articles, my okole. He was a writing instructor, not a scientist. I'll tell you who those professors were if you remind me when we talk in person. I'm not about to say anything in print that may get back to them. I still occasionally take courses from the University.

good piece, john!

hey! you two were supposed to wait til i got through! *grin*

Thanks, ladies (Stacey, Marcia, Nan, Wolf). I appreciate it.

Talk to you this weekend...I will endeavor to remember (making note to put in cash box for t-shirt sales...)and we shall talk story...

(stacey) some of all, i s'pose... (reading/writing/working/playing) (etc)... very coolish up here... very un-texaslike in just about every way, but i'm adjusting... (in my fashion)... (what about you?) both the yeats and the dickinson were lovely, by the way... and john- while i, too, find myself drawn to the discipline of (mostly discarded, these days) form- i thought your verse well-made, and moving... (paula wrote this) (but everything above nick wrote) (if that makes any sense at all): (yes... very much liked the piece, john- reminds me of a cummings poem, actually... lemme see if i can find it, hold on-) "Sometimes I reach out to stroke the vacant place where your hair made the down inside the now lonely pillow jealous of its softness...." [27] "... - before leaving my room i turn, and(stooping through the morning)kiss this pillow,dear where our heads lived and were" thats what your poem made me think of... thank you for posting it. she's done now... back on her own damn terminal (we're at an internet cafe, in vancouver)... going to a laborday poetry picnic thing in a few minutes, on the beach... gonna be some kind of live hookup with some san antonio poets, which sounds very cool... though why anyone would start a picnic (labor day, otherwise) at seven o'clock at night is a little confusing (but they're very peculiar here, in many ways)...

It sounds like Hawaii, Nick. Perhaps they are too hot and laid back to do much musing before dark?!

anytime my poetry can remind someone of cummings, I am beyond flattered. Thanks Nick and Paula.

nick: (stacey) some of all, i s'pose... (reading/writing/working/playing) (etc)... very coolish up here... very un-texaslike in just about every way, but i'm adjusting... (in my fashion)... (what about you?) coolish mood wise? or temperature wise? a little of both? or a little of none? I think I'm dreamy comfortable in a realistic sorta way... fantasizing about running away with B to marry... wine country and sunshine and more fresh air than I could ever possibly fill my lungs with... *deep breath* surrounding myself with that love as we exchange vows... making it more than words... more than pretty pictures for posterity... making it breaths breathed in unison yes... dreamy. writing in my head... cursing laziness while I actively refuse to scribble thoughts onto paper... lotsa thoughts though. good ones and silly ones and grown up feeling ones... I'm pretty comfortable nick. this place is very un-texaslike in many ways ... i think I have adjusted. I have a real cozy, shady but warm home inside my house and in my circle of happiness... (and in this topic... I guess i have only recently lost my fear and lonliness and weariness... never fear... I'm sure I'll stumble upon it again one day.)

by Robert Bly A man told me once that all the bad people Were needed. Maybe not all, but your fingernails You need; they are really claws, and we know Claws. The sharks--what about them? They make other fish swim faster. The hard-faced men In black coats who chase you for hours In dreams--that's the only way to get you To the shore. Sometimes those hard women Who abandon you get you to say, "You." A lazy part of us is like a tumbleweed. It doesn't move on its own. It takes sometimes A lot of Depression to get tumbleweeds moving. Then they blow across three or four States. This man told me that things work together. Bad handwriting sometimes leads to new ideas; And a careless God--who refuses to let you Eat from the Tree of Knowledge--can lead To books, and eventually to us. We write Poems with lies in them, but they help a little.

Thanks for that, John. This is a place I fear to come when I feel vulnerable - as I do today. Yes, those poems with little lies in them help a little...!

One of the all-time great movie lines is from Jeff Goldblum in "The Big Chill": "I don't know if I can make it through a day without a nice, big, juicy rationalization or two." (or something like that)

Stace, that is lovely. I hope you let Brandon see it...you heart and soul have found their home.

That is nice, Stacey...you have a poetic touch even when you are (just) answering a post. But it seems basically everyone who enters here has that.

damn, stacey... that was so beautiful... really happy for you (and brandon)... glad, too, that you're feeling so at home... but- 'untexas-like'? (colorado being, after all- rightfully- texas northern-most county)

Oh, life is glorious cycle of song, A medley of extemporanea; And love is a thing that can never go wrong; And I am Marie of Roumania. --Dorothy Parker

Thanks for that, Nan...the first laugh this place has gotten from me in a very long time!

Great, Nan! Dorothy Parker is one of my favorites...a first-rate wit, which she had to be to keep up with the rest of the wags of the Algonquin Round Table. One Perfect Rose A single flow'r he sent me, since we met. All tenderly his messenger he chose; Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet- One perfect rose. I knew the language of the floweret; "My fragile leaves," it said, "his heart enclose." Love long has taken for his amulet One perfect rose. Why is it no one ever sent me yet One perfect limousine, do you suppose? Ah no, it's always just my luck to get One perfect rose. - Dorothy Parker, 1926

Oh GOOD!! More Parker fans. ;) And I'm glad that made you laugh, Marcia. I'm also fond of her one-liners -- for example, "Brevity is the soul of lingerie." She proves that poems about loss can keep their protective edge, doesn't she? I've been searching for one poem in particular that I can remember only snatches of -- about a relationship gone south, formerly cherished, with a line about must we pretend it never was "just because it perished?" Anybody here know that one or have it in a volume? I've searched for it online to no avail.

Not yet, but I am also an avid DP fan and I shall search for it, as well, both on the net and in my books here. We shall find much good stuff Parker, even if we don't succeed in finding that particular one! Ascerbic wit - my favorite kind - with just the right amount of pain to let you know she has "been there", too...*hugs* for posting Parker!

More of it came into my head tonight... you know how that back burner works: "..... ..... ...... ... no longer cherished, Should we say it was not love, Just because it perished?" Yes, Marcia, that's why I like her too -- when her heart was broken she bled in public because she was a writer, but always with a wry, sardonic smile for her audience.

I love poems of loss, and I don't know why I haven't posted on here before, but here goes: ON THE DEATH OF HIS WIFE by Muireadach O'Dalaigh (early 13th century) I parted from my wife last night, A woman's body sunk in clay: The tender bosom that I loved Wrapped in a sheet they took away. The heavy blossom that had lit The ancient boughs is tossed and blown; Her was the burden of delight That long had weighed the old tree down. And I am left alone tonight And desolate is the world I see For lovely was that woman's weight That even last night had lain on me. Weeping I took upon the place Where she used to rest her head-- For yesterday her body's length Reposed upon you too, my bed. Yesterday that smiling face Upon one side of you was laid That could match the hazel bloom In its dark delicate sweet shade. Maelva of the shadowy brows Was the mead-cask at my side; Fairest of all flowers that grow Was the beauty that has died. My body's self deserts me now, The half of me that was her own, Since all I knew of brightness died Half of me lingers, half is gone. The face that was like hawthorn bloom Was my right foot and my right side; And my right hand and my right eye Were no more mine than hers who died. Poor is the share of me that's left Since half of me died with my wife; I shudder at the words I speak; Dear God, that girl was half my life. And our first look was her first love; No man had fondled ere I came The little breasts so small and firm And the long body like a flame. For twenty years we shared a home, Our converse milder with each year; Eleven children in its time Did that tall stately body bear. It was the King of hosts and roads Who snatched her from me in her prime: Little she wished to leave alone The man she loved before her time. Now King of churches and bells, Though never raised a pledge a lie That woman's hand--can it be true?-- No more beneath my head will lie.

Wow, Amy - powerful stuff. The poor man. I know that feeling of only being a half of a person while someone either encaring or unable to bring it back to where it belonged remained unattainable. It is an acute ache that never quite leaves, like a haunting... Thanks for posting that.

(Marcia)I know that feeling of only being a half of a person while someone either encaring or unable to bring it back to where it belonged remained unattainable. It is an acute ache that never quite leaves, like a haunting You are so, so right. It's twice as bad when the person isn't dead, because you're always tortured with the idea that someday you might get back together, someday you might make it work.

I don't know if this classifies as a "poem of loss" per se, but I once had a very emotional experience while reading this aloud: NOT WAVING BUT DROWNING by Stevie Smith Nobody heard him, the dead man, But still he lay moaning: I was much farther out than you thought And not waving but drowning. Poor chap, he always loved larking And now he's dead It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way, They said. Oh, no no no, it was too cold always (Still the dead one lay moaning) I was much too far out all my life And not waving but drowning.

I'm going through my anthology of English literature, and I'm just finding so many poems that I loved so dearly when I took that class! A YEAR'S SPINNING by Elizabeth Barrett Browning 1. He listened at the porch that day, To hear the wheel go on, and on; And then it stopped, ran back away, While through the door he brought the sun: But now my spinning is all done. 2. He sat beside me, with an oath That love ne'er ended, once begun; I smiled--believing for us both, What was the truth for only one: And now my spinning is all done. 3. My mother cursed me that I heard A young man's wooing as I spun: Thanks, cruel mother, for that word-- For I have, since, a harder known! And now my spinning is all done. 4. I thought--O God!--my first born's cry Both voices to mine ear would drown: I listened in mine agony-- It was the silence made me groan! And now my spinning is all done. 5. Bury me 'twixt my mother's grave, (Who cursed me on her death-bed lone) And my dead baby's (God it save!) Who, not to bless me, would not moan. And now my spinning is all done. 6. A stone upon my heart and head, But no name written on the stone! Sweet neighbours, whisper low instead, "This sinner was a loving one-- And now her spinning is all done." 7. And let the door ajar remain, In case he should pass by anon; And leave the wheel out very plain,-- That HE, when passing in the sun, May see the spinning is all done.

Ah yes, hope springs eternal...for me, as well. Just the right word (or any word, for that matter) from him and the entire complexion of the world changes. Flowers bloom where there were none before; sun shines where there were gloomy clouds hovering. Everything changes! With just a little word or two from the right person... Sometimes I wonder how close to drowning I really am...

Sounds like EBB had a mother like mine! Fortunately, and thanks be to God, I have never experienced the ultimate horror of burying my own child.