mice and men

"What things are steadfast? ...
Not the bride and groom who hurry
in their brevity to reach one another.
...
Fearing madness in all things huge
and their requiring...
...
We love a little, as the mice
huddle..."

--Linda Gregg


I found this poem a couple of nights ago, what a moment of serendipitous premonition. Had I known how perfectly it would fit this moment, 48 hours from when I first fell in love with it, I would have said: you say you are in love with these words (and other fanciful ideas), but you have no idea. You who barely tasted the air above the well of infatuation, beneath which a current runs to the oceans and other oceans. I would say, you are as brief, as contained, as mouse-like as this poem accuses you. You who wear the target this poem aims at, but have yet to feel the arrow's sharp piercing. Even 48 hours from now, the silver will only have scraped by with barely a scratch.

But who listens to the poets? What I have now is infinitesimal compared to the seas; what I had then was smaller still. Somewhere on dimensions not mine, the gods are savoring all things huge and mad and ignited, rolling them around their tongues as occasional flames escape out of their lips. While I--

while I barely make it into the world of mice and men.

**