This line came back to me today as I was driving to my favorite bar. I was listening to chet baker on the car stereo sing The Thrill is Gone and smoking a cigarette and I drove a couple of pretty young women. I didn’t stare but I did look. They were nice to look at so who wouldn’t. As I drove on, I saw that there was an old woman on the sidewalk. She was walking toward the two young women.

This scene, along with the soulful music of Chet Baker seemed to make the whole thing seem very tragic to me, which made me think of that line from Antigone

All of this made me think that in some ways to be alive is a tragic condition. We are bound to die. Those of us who eat healthy, those of us who don’t. Smokers and non smokers will all grow old and die. This is tragic

So I wonder if human beings are drawn to tragedy because we subconciously understand that the very fact that we live is a tragedy that is played out as our lives play out over time

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2008

Please don’t tell her
we’re having this conversation.

She would say we are fools
for acting like young lovers.

But you and I know better, I think,
than to deny ourselves the music

of my callused hands playing
softly across your skin.

2008

A Small Vespers
for Jennifer

I. The Litany of Peace

You need this. Asleep on the train,
you are at peace with the whole
world; at peace with the wounds
of the day; at peace with the hand
that stings; the nation and it’s institutions
for which all are responsible; at peace
with the demands of the exact time
and the gentle rocking of the 5:09
out of the city.

sing a quiet psalm to your heart
while you lie in the seat with your coat
half open and the windows of section
eight houses begin to glow, like candles
under the cradling roof of the Chicago
to Elburn.