Life Is to Yearn

At the edge of this ancient little river,

and in the sunset, she hears no sound,

only a whisper of the silence of the ages.

She has something in her heart and it hurts.

Life is to yearn again and still again, and grieve

inevitable death elsewhere in the universe.

Calmly she fixes her gaze. Despair

merely furnishes a tonic for her courage.

Sunlight filters through like a halo.