Emptied of Solid, Filled with Vapor

[rejectomorph]

The air contends with damp, and the sky is only intermittently clear. I've noticed that a tree somewhere to the west has gone missing since last I looked. I don't remember hearing one being taken down lately, so it must have happened some time ago. The disappearance has opened another bit of sky to view, so there'll be a few more days and nights each year for watching the moon and sun set, and there'll be slightly more cloud to be seen as well. Bit by bit the sky displaces the woods.

I've been reading Donne again lately. He feels suitable to the season somehow.


Sunday Verse

The Broken Heart

by John Donne



He is stark mad, whoever says,
That he hath been in love an hour,
Yet not that love so soon decays,
But that it can ten in less space devour;
Who will believe me, if I swear
That I have had the plague a year?
Who would not laugh at me, if I should say
I saw a flash of powder burn a day?

Ah, what a trifle is a heart,
If once into love's hands it come!
All other griefs allow a part
To other griefs, and ask themselves but some;
They come to us, but us love draws;
He swallows us and never chaws;
By him, as by chain'd shot, whole ranks do die;
He is the tyrant pike, our hearts the fry.

If 'twere not so, what did become
Of my heart when I first saw thee?
I brought a heart into the room,
But from the room I carried none with me.
If it had gone to thee, I know
Mine would have taught thine heart to show
More pity unto me; but Love, alas!
At one first blow did shiver it as glass.

Yet nothing can to nothing fall,
Nor any place be empty quite;
Therefore I think my breast hath all
Those pieces still, though they be not unite;
And now, as broken glasses show
A hundred lesser faces, so
My rags of heart can like, wish, and adore,
But after one such love, can love no more.