Faithful and Virtuous Night

by Louise Glück

You have no idea how shocking it is to a small child when something continuous stops.

I think here I will leave you. It has come to seem there is no perfect ending. Indeed, there are infinite endings. Or perhaps, once one begins, there are only endings.

Books could be written about this quote. I used it to talk to my children about imperfection and the pursuit of being better and what this all means when thrown together.

Great things, she said, are ahead of you, or perhaps behind you; it is difficult to be sure. And yet, she added, what is the difference? Right now you are a child holding hands with a fortune-teller. All the rest is hypothesis and dream.

All the rest is hypothesis and dream! That got me.

the smell of oblivion

Once there was a horse, and on the horse there was a rider. How handsome they looked in the autumn sunlight, approaching a strange city! People thronged the streets or called from the high windows. Old women sat among flowerpots. But when you looked about for another horse or another rider, you looked in vain. My friend, said the animal, why not abandon me? Alone, you can find your way here. But to abandon you, said the other, would be to leave a part of myself behind, and how can I do that when I do not know which part you are?

I think many people who work with animals can feel this way. Especially when you are working a task together, where does one mind end and the other begin?