Inside the tiny Pantheon
We stood together silently.
Leaving the restless crowd awhile
As ships find shelter from the sea.
The ancient centuries came back
To cover us a moment’s space,
And through the dome the light was glad
Because it shone upon your face.
Ah, not from Rome but farther still,
Beyond sun-smitten Salamis,
The moment took us, till you leaned
To find the present with a kiss.
— Sara Teasdale
I was a dog in my former life, a very good
dog, and, thus, I was promoted to a human being.
I liked being a dog. I worked for a poor farmer
guarding and herding his sheep. Wolves and coyotes
tried to get past me almost every night, and not
once did I lose a sheep. The farmer rewarded me
with good food, food from his table. He may have
been poor, but he ate well. And his children
played with me, when they weren’t in school or
working in the field. I had all the love any dog
could hope for. When I got old, they got a new
dog, and I trained him in the tricks of the trade.
He quickly learned, and the farmer brought me into
the house to live with them. I brought the farmer
his slippers in the morning, as he was getting
old, too. I was dying slowly, a little bit at a
time. The farmer knew this and would bring the
new dog in to visit me from time to time. The
new dog would entertain me with his flips and
flops and nuzzles. And then one morning I just
didn’t get up. They gave me a fine burial down
by the stream under a shade tree. That was the
end of my being a dog. Sometimes I miss it so
I sit by the window and cry. I live in a high-rise
that looks out at a bunch of other high-rises.
At my job I work in a cubicle and barely speak
to anyone all day. This is my reward for being
a good dog. The human wolves don’t even see me.
They fear me not.
— James Tate
The end of love should be a big event.
It should involve the hiring of a hall.
Why the hell not? It happens to us all.
Why should it pass without acknowledgment?
Suits should be dry-cleaned, invitations sent.
Whatever form it takes—a tiff, a brawl—
The end of love should be a big event.
It should involve the hiring of a hall.
Better than the unquestioning descent
Into the trap of silence, than the crawl
From visible to hidden, door to wall.
Get the announcements made, the money spent.
The end of love should be a big event.
It should involve the hiring of a hall.
— Sophie Hannah
