Somewhere, casting a shadow over hills, seas, hearts,
a sadness moves,
and where it lingers
tears form fall and death is but a pinch-upon-a-flame away.
Somewhere,
erecting unseen barriers around each
separate
soul,
a loneliness is at its subtle work,
snipping the trembling bonds which men have wrought of trust,
and pointing out man's catastrophic self.
We stand in a lukewarm bath, while the world plunges,
and tears,
unreconciled, course questions
down
our cheeks. . .
Can you spare a tear for life?
Can you spare a tear for the
ecstasy which lifts us close to Truth--
quite harmless if not indulged in. . .
mistaken for reality--easily rechanneled
thanks to modern psychoanalytic methods.
Spare a tear! Just one
for that moment when all Time stops
to let a butterfly alight upon a lotus,
and two cars collide,
a babe is born deformed,
a girl is robbed. . .cigar
smoke, stench of bodies scattered on a field, all this distracts
our thought and Time? creaks on.
One tear! To show your love, one tear for
elves and pixies and sprites and all delightful fantasies
and Pooh!
and Alice-Through-the-Looking-Glass, and Jo in Little Women
who should have known enough to marry Laurie; Beth,
the exquisite, ideal, of a higher world, not long
for this--
and one tear for the infant wriggling in a bed of straw, much
to the cows' distress; and one
for squirrels who talk
and ugly toads who are transfigured
like we knew they would be--
Yes, and one for those who come from theaters with shiny nose
and red-rimmed eye; and one for those who love and those who lose
and those who cry
(Written January 17, 1964, two weeks before I became a Christian;
Set to music by Daniel Fung and sung by soloist at International Christian University student recital)
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