There is no wear and tear
   Quite like the rebuilding of a man
      In the dark and quiet isolation of try
      Beneath it all
   These are the things nobody sees
His skies

The pale, the cold, and the moony smile
Which the meteor beam of a starless night
Sheds on a lonely and sea-girt isle,
Ere the dawning of morn’s undoubted light,
Is the flame of life so fickle and wan
That flits round our steps till their strength is gone.

O man! hold thee on in courage of soul
Through the stormy shades of thy wordly way,
And the billows of clouds that around thee roll
Shall sleep in the light of a wondrous day,
Where hell and heaven shall leave thee free
To the universe of destiny.

This world is the nurse of all we know,
This world is the mother of all we feel,
And the coming of death is a fearful blow
To a brain unencompass’d by nerves of steel:
When all that we know, or feel, or see,
Shall pass like an unreal mystery.

The secret things of the grave are there,
Where all but this frame must surely be,
Though the fine-wrought eye and the wondrous ear
No longer will live, to hear or to see
All that is great and all that is strange
In the boundless realm of unending change.

Who telleth a tale of unspeaking death?
Who lifteth the veil of what is to come?
Who painteth the shadows that are beneath
The wide-winding caves of the peopled tomb?
Or uniteth the hopes of what shall be
With the fears and the love for that which we see?

I stared with no expression
at the white light
and wondered about black and red.
I wondered what I would do if
things went all but soft and white.
I felt I would wither,
helpless,
weak,
useless.
But
I decided to keep myself happy,
I decided I would put white silk cushions
in my heart's cave
and would invite the rain and winds
to smother me
with cool love
and keep me soft.

                                                        -s­torm-