Do you ever feel like giving up?
I have heard you say so, but your eyes--
Your eyes say something else.

I wish it were as simple
As asking how, after
Your ink and your soul
Should have been drunk dry
By pitiless papers piled high--
How, when mine have fallen to the floor
Your eyes are still so bright.

You laugh, finding limits
And leave them behind.

Was I ever so tenacious?
I thought so, only--
I thought too slowly.

All my own dim, damp lenses can see,
In that stark white lined expanse,
Is a darkness, darker than ink,
And deeper than night.
But your eyes are so bright.