“Harm and Boon in the Meetings” by Jack Gilbert
We think the fire eats the wood. We are wrong. The wood reaches out to the flame. The fire licks at what the wood harbors, and the wood gives itself away to that intimacy, the manner in which we and the world meet each new day. Harm and boon in the meetings. As heart meets what is not heart, the way the spirit encounters the flesh and the mouth meets the foreignness in another mouth. We stand looking at the ruin of our garden in the early dark of November, hearing crows go over while the first snow shines coldly everywhere. Grief makes the heart apparent as much as sudden happiness can.