From a Survivor

The pact that we made was the ordinary pact
of men & women in those days

I don’t know who we thought we were
that our personalities
could resist the failures of the race

Lucky or unlucky, we didn’t know
the race had failures of that order
and that we were going to share them

Like everybody else, we thought of ourselves as special

Your body is as vivid to me
as it ever was: even more

since my feeling for it is clearer:
I know what it could and could not do

it is no longer
the body of a god
or anything with power over my life

Next year it would have been 20 years
and you are wastefully dead
who might have made the leap
we talked, too late, of making

which I live now
not as a leap
but a succession of brief, amazing movements

each one making possible the next

Adrienne Rich

Boat on the river

Take me back to my boat on the river
I need to go down, I need to come down
Take me back to my boat on the river
And I wont cry out any more
Time stands still as I gaze in her waters
She eases me down, touching me gently
With the waters that flow past my boat on the river
So I dont cry out anymore

Oh the river is deep
The river it touches my life like the waves on the sand
And all roads lead to tranquillity base
Where the frown on my face disappears
Take me down to my boat on the river
And I wont cry out anymore

Oh the river is wide
The river it touches my life like the waves on the sand
And all roads lead to tranquillity base
Where the frown on my face disappears
Take me down to my boat on the river
I need to go down, with you let me go down
Take me back to my boat on the river
And I wont cry out anymore
And I wont cry out anymore
And I wont cry out anymore