Some Final Thoughts On A Fairy Tale

Again and again we put our sweet ghosts on small paper boats and sailed them back into their death, each moving slowly into the dark, disappearing as our hearts visited and savored, hurt and yearned.

—Jack Gilbert, from “Kunstkammer”

There are other things besides monkeying around with words that are necessary, require commitment and discipline and all the cooperative powers of the heart and mind, and that are worth doing precisely because they involve risks whose rewards are a form of salvation and intimate, connected immortality, a lasting connection with living memory.

It’s all a question of who, precisely, you want to be known and remembered by, and how.