Near Dimensions — The Giants Are Sick

The broad forehead is covered today by a rag soaked in vinegar...

The two eyes that send forth a thousand meanings — nothing but pain is to be seen in them any longer...

The mouth is dry: in it are longing and hunger.

The spirit is a giant; the body cannot keep pace with it,

so he writhes on a bed whose sheet bunches up and then spreads out again under the strain of the going and the coming....

XXXX

There is no one with him to carry him past his sorrow with roads, with songs, with trysts. Stillness, and pain — and pain dragging stillness behind it.

Is it not certain that a smile, with love, makes the vinegar a balm!!?..

Is it not certain that tenderness, with medicines, melts the fever away in shame, so that it does no more harm!!?..

Woe is me — he was a stranger, alone in his sickness.. I was not there, that smiling, tender woman!