<b>Snowdrops</b> Do you know what I was, how I lived? You know what despair is; then winter should have meaning for you. I did not expect to surviv… - Louise Glück

crying yes risk joy

I did not expect to survive,
earth suppressing me. I didn't expect
to waken again, to feel
in damp earth my body
able to respond again, remembering
after so long how to open again
in the cold light
of earliest spring— afraid, yes, but among you again
crying yes risk joy in the raw wind of the new world.

death cannot harm me
more than you have harmed me,
my beloved life.

To say I’m without fear–
it wouldn’t be true.
I’m afraid of sickness, humiliation.
Like anyone, I have my dreams.
But I’ve learned to hide them,
to protect myself
from fulfillment: all happiness
attracts the Fates’ anger.
They are sisters, savages–
in the end, they have
no emotion but envy. — 'Confession

this is the light of autumn; it has turned
on us.
Surely it is a privilege to approach the
end
still believing in something.