02
Feb(A poem by Philip Larkin - Continuing to live)
From the exhibit Private Lighterature . Townsend Center for the Humanities , University of California, Berkeley, October 25th 2006 - January 10th 2007. Dedicated to Aurélie Vialette.
Special thanks to Tony Cascardi & Teresa Stojkov
Continuing to live —that is, repeat
A habit formed to get necessaries—
Is nearly always losing, or going without.
It varies.
This loss of interest, hair, and enterprise —
Ah, if the game were poker, yes,
You might discard them, draw a full house!
But it’s chess.
And once you have walked the length of your mind, what
You command is clear as a lading-list.
Anything else must not, for you, be thought
To exist.
And what’s the profit? Only that, in time,
We half-identify the blind impress
All our behavings bear, may trace it home.
But to confess,
In that green evening when our death begins,
Just what it was, is hardly satisfying,
Since it applied only to one man once,
And that one dying.
Discussions are automatically filtered and moderated to prevent spam, and unsuitable or offensive messages. Code, html tags, or any form of malicious code will also be eliminated. Prior to commenting, users must enter a valid email address. If in doubt, please refer to the terms of our privacy policy.
Please, fill all the required fields in the form below, and send your comment. It will be queued pending moderation.