“A
desiccated daffodil.
A
pigeon cooing on the sill.
The
old cat lives on love and water.
Your
mother’s balanced by your daughter:
one
faces death, one will give birth.
The
fulcrum is our life on earth,
beginning,
ending in a bed.
We
have to marry love and dread.” —American poet, teacher, essayist, and
translator Rachel Hadas, “Love and Dread,” The
New Yorker, Nov. 18, 2019
