Love in the Museum

This is how love caresses, cherishes a long farewell. Little time remains, we are about to die, perhaps not today but sooner than later. His left hand leaning on his cane, he strokes her ear. Stroking her ear is not about generating erotic heat, though that can arise. It's about the miracle of being able to stand up, once again, next to each other; to dress (more difficult than they ever imagined, young and tearing their clothes off in a passion), to make an outing, to receive gifts together. The miracle is a hand that can still find a beloved ear, an ear that can still feel the touch, a reminder, we are here together. A little longer. 


When I was at Powell’s on Tuesday, I discovered a new book by Ursula K. LeGuin, her last, a collection of poems, So Far, So Good, Final Poems: 2014-2018. The last poem in the last book written by one who wrote many, many books, is this:

On the Western Shore

By Ursula K. LeGuin

Ebb tide is when to roam
the long beach alone
and find the jetsam
of the forgotten or unknown,
a slender breastbone,
a glass net-float lost
from a boat off Honshu
a century unbroken.

The lowest, the neap tide,
that bares long reaches
that were deep underwater
where the slope grows steep,
is when to walk out so far
that looking back you see
no shore. Under bare feet
the sand is bare and rippled. Dark
of evening deepens into night
and the sea becomes sleep.