Those dreams in which a phantom
Of the beloved appears: those
Are a true haunting. A trick
Of the mind to make you think
She's lost, that he will never
Come again.
You wake
In the dark, weeping. You hear
The river outside your window,
Flowing to the sea. You think:
Who could read poems
In this darkness? And all the time
Your sorrow is the poem of hope
And the beloved is there beside you.
- Gregory Orr, from Concerning the Book that is the Body of the Beloved