Song After Sadness

Despair is still servant to the violet and wild ongoings of bone. You, remember, are that which must be made servant only to salt, only to the watery acre that is the body of the beloved, only to the child leaning forward into the exhibit of birches the forest has made of bronze light and snow. Even as the day kneels forward, the oceans and strung garnets, too, kneel, they are all kneeling, the city, the goat, the lime tree and mother, the fearful doctor, kneeling. Don't say it's the beautiful I praise. I praise the human, gutted and rising. by Katie Ford