Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter
everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace,
they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in
their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives
because that’s what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before
summer dawn would not
be made so fine. The Bengal
tiger would not
be fashioned so miraculously
well. The poor women
at the fountain are laughing
together between
the suffering they have known
and the awfulness
in their future, smiling and
laughing while somebody
in the village is very sick.
There is laughter
every day in the terrible
streets of Calcutta,
and the women laugh in the
cages of Bombay.
If we deny our happiness,
resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of
their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can
do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not
enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept
our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To
make injustice the only
measure of our attention is
to praise the Devil.
If the locomotive of the Lord
runs us down,
we should give thanks that
the end had magnitude.
We must admit there will be
music despite everything.
We stand at the prow again of
a small ship
anchored late at night in the
tiny port
looking over to the sleeping
island: the waterfront
is three shuttered cafés and
one naked light burning.
To hear the faint sound of
oars in the silence as a rowboat
comes slowly out and then
goes back is truly worth
all the years of sorrow that
are to come.