funerals & clasped hands.

I walk by a funeral home every day. At least twice a week, there's a crowd outside, gathered after a funeral. I stare those people down. I can feel loss and death on that corner, underneath my fingernails, creaking in my elbows and knees. I dwell on those people, perhaps too much. The loss of another human being, a life, someone who was loved. I don't want to see, but I can't turn away.

In return, I also devote myself to beautiful things,

Such as this wonderful wire sculpture by Gavin Worth,

This beautiful little book sculpture by a mysterious artist in Edinburgh,

And Sonnet XVII by Pablo Neruda,

I don't love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn't bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don't know any other way of loving

but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.

I hope clasped hands and books and love win the day.