My Virtual Reading Room

[From my archives, originally posted Feb.10, 2010]
~~~~

We can never know.
He answered me like the stillness of a star
That silences us asking.
No, Sarah, no:
We are and that is all our answer.
We are and what we can is suffer.
But...
         what suffers loves.
                                         And love
Will live its suffering again,
Risk its own defeat again,
Endure the loss of everything again
And yet again and yet again
In doubt, in dread, in ignorance, unanswered,
Over and over, with the dark before,
The dark behind it...and still live....still love.

(From Archibald MacLeish's J.B.)