The Clothes Pin - Jane Kenyon

How much better it is

to carry wood to the fire

than to moan about your life.

How much better

to throw the garbage

onto the compost, or to pin the clean

sheet on the line

with a gray-brown wooden clothes pin!

The Weeping - Franz Wright

He has considered weeping, only

he can’t even bring himself to

 

take a stab at it. He just can’t cry–

it is terrible to cry

 

when you’re by yourself, because

what then?

 

Nothing is solved,

nobody comes;

even solitary children understand. This

apparent respite, apparent quenching

 

of the need to be befriended

might (much like love in later years) leave you

 

lonelier than when you were merely alone?