How easily I shed them as a child,
in misery or frantic rage,
impervious to taunts of crybaby,
bawling my grief to the tiny world
which adults have forgotten
and only children know.
Nowadays I lay aside the melancholy book
with merely a sigh, sit stony-lipped
through many a tragic film,
not to mention global disasters
nightly served with the news
at dinner-time. I meet
the loss of friends and loved ones
dry-eyed—albeit numb
with regret.
Almost I wish I had not lost the art
of weeping, lost the feel of warm tears
raining down my cheeks,
that collapse of control,
surrender to raw emotion.
But then I think: what could provoke
the breaking of this lachrymal drought?
And am thankful for
its continuance.