That parting

31 January 2020. A pretty dark day here for the most part, not a lot of light. At midnight we become—officially now—a small, resentful, disunited island, moored off the coast of Europe. So that should make some people happy.

For the rest of us—not so good. Not a question of money though I expect things to get worse, particularly for those already struggling. There were endless, often pointless, arguments about trade, finance, various economic factors. But it was never really about that.

I was thinking of Ezra Pound’s ‘Exile’s Letter’ by ‘Rihaku’ (Li Po):

And if you ask how I regret that parting:
It is like the flowers falling at Spring’s end
Confused, whirled in a tangle.
What is the use of talking, and there is no end of talking,
There is no end of things in the heart.

But thinking also of Robert Creeley’s short poem, ‘Myself’:

I want, if older,
still to know
why, human, men
and women are

so torn, so lost, why hopes cannot
find better world
than this.