To raise the veil. To see what you're saying goodbye to.

I caution you as I was never cautioned: You will never let go, you will never be satiated. You will be damaged and scarred, you will continue to hunger. Your body will age, you will continue to need. You will want the earth, then more of the earth-- Sublime, indifferent, it is present, it will not respond. It is encompassing, it will not minister. Meaning, it will feed you, it will ravish you. It will not keep you alive.

Balm of the summer night, balm of the ordinary, imperial joy and sorrow of human existence, the dreamed as well as the lived— what could be dearer than this, given the closeness of death?

The soul is silent. If it speaks at all it speaks in dreams.

I pretended indifference…even in the presence of love, in the presence of hunger. And the more deeply I felt, the less able I was to respond.

Birth, not death, is the hard loss.

What was difficult was the travel, which, on arrival, is forgotten.