The Barrier

The Barrier

But good-night! — God bless-you!
    The stillness of true loss:
Sterne says, that is equal to a kiss:
     it wakes with him. It is
yet I would rather give you the kiss
     the moment before full
into the bargain, glowing with
     consciousness and the
gratitude to heaven, and affection
     moment after. It is the
to you. I like the word affection,
     utter stillness of pure
because it signifies something
     loss held like a sweet
habitual; and we seem to
     contemplated face in the
meet, to try whether we have
     bed of love, held for a
mind enough to keep our
     second before movement,
hearts warm. — Mary.
     before life. It is the descending
I will be at the barrier
     certainty that you are purely
a little after ten o’clock,
     alone forever and that no one,
tomorrow.
     No one can ever touch that

loneliness and loss.
Mary Wollstonecraft

Turned away from me,
                                                     I read the sadness of pure
                                                     loss as it floods his face —
                                                     although I cannot see it.
                                                     The still terror and yet
                                                     the acceptance of that
                                                     terror in the silent morning
                                                     bed before light and
                                                     movement. The impossibility
                                                     of fully naming it, the im-
                                                     possibility of being in it.

(from: Un Tour d’Ecosse, Carcanet, 2001)