Mark Strand


Mark Strand

Coming To This

We have done what we wanted. 
We have discarded dreams, preferring the heavy industry  
of each other, and we have welcomed grief 
and called ruin the impossible habit to break. 

And now we are here
The dinner is ready and we cannot eat.  
The meat sits in the white lake of its dish.  
The wine waits. 

Coming to this 
has its rewards: nothing is promised, nothing is taken away.  
We have no heart or saving grace, 
no place to go, no reason to remain.


D. H. Lawrence

 from Pansies THE WHITE HORSE The youth walks up to the white horse, to put its halter on and the horse looks at him in silence. They are s...