Faithful and Virtuous Night

by Louise Glück

And then the voice grows still. At which point my soul will have merged with the infinite, which is represented by a straight line, like a minus sign. I have no heirs in the sense that I have nothing of substance to leave behind. Possibly time will revise this disappointment. Those who know me well will find no news here; I sympathize. Those to whom I am bound by affection will forgive, I hope, the distortions compelled by the occasion. I will be brief. This concludes, as the stewardess says, our short flight. And all the persons one will never know crowd into the aisle, and all are funneled into the terminal.

She takes you on a tour of the inside of her head. She shares her vision with you: stars . . . Moon . . . Sun . . . Garden Flowers . . . And Mist! So much Mist. Her images are evocative and very personal. I never felt, though, that she was sharing them with me, just pointing at them. I did enjoy Parable, Midnight and the journal of her day.