spleen

a moment of peace

What brings you peace is immeasurably small. Mozart's "Laudate Dominum Vesperae de Dominica," or a few bars of the miraculous duet from "Lakme." Or a ballerina in British Columbia who wrote you to say, I think your poems are danceable. Or better yet, that woman who approached you in a cafe somewhere to tell you that your poems saved her life. That woman whose life you saved, who immediately forgot you and went off and married and had children and found God. What brings you peace is so fragile, so forgettable, that misery becomes infinitely easy. But serenity is still there, palpable, concrete to you as a stone or a city. You can have a small drop of peace if you want it.