O guardian of all injured hearts,
make for me a place inside this place,
build for me a fence inside a wall,
make a dam inside an ocean wave,
and till the world cracks and time ends,
let the jailer’s torment be
to hear the captive sing.
O guardian of all injured hearts,
make for me a place inside this place,
build for me a fence inside a wall,
make a dam inside an ocean wave,
and till the world cracks and time ends,
let the jailer’s torment be
to hear the captive sing.
when the sadness is when remembrance
conspires with the future to put you
in your place–too small for the things you feel
too large for the things you know how to say
Whatever the case was, was not the case,
the lake that was, was not the lake but
everything: luxuriating in the depths
our houses and our cars, our surgical
ineptitude, our toys and guns and drones
suspended dark in waving water, things
we remembered and things we forgot,
our love, our multitudinous outrights,
layovers, lost places, families,
the ghosts of all the world, things not yet dead,
our volcanoes, our suburbs, our pets,
equations, scratched-out maps, infinitude,
the things we did or dreamed, our interlude.