by Livia Ellis
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Oh that’s very nice.
I agree. That is very nice. Finally a good use to all of that reading I had to do in school. I should have thought of this years ago.
Did you write that one?
Shakespeare. Sweetheart I don’t write poetry.
If I did write poetry, what do you think you’d write?
Ah–I don’t know. Probably something like this.
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
That’s sad.
Not really. In fact it’s the opposite of sad. It’s not sad. It’s empowering. Nothing is going to bring me to my knees. I am the master of my fate and the captain of my soul. No one has a gun to my head. I am the one that makes my decisions
Like not going to go work for her father?
Precisely like not going to work for her father.
(Her fingers touch my face.)
Am I sad?
Yes.
Why?
Because for the first time I really own my mistakes. I have fucked up my own life so extraordinarily it is a wonder I am the master of my fate.
Tell her another poem. A better one. One that doesn’t make me sad.
No.
Please.
Fine.
There is no magic any more,
We meet as other people do,
You work no miracle for me
Nor I for you.
You were the wind and I the sea—
There is no splendor any more,
I have grown listless as the pool
Beside the shore.
But though the pool is safe from storm
And from the tide has found surcease,
It grows more bitter than the sea,
For all its peace.
That’s sad.
Yes. Endings are sad. What comes after the ending is even sadder.
What’s after the ending?
Nothing. Just silence and tears.
