American poet Gregory Orr
Song of Aftermath
Standing now, in a place
Scrubbed raw by flood.
I, who sought neither
Rapture nor fracture.
Now the question is:
What do you do with shatter?
Someone else’s map?
I’d end up half-trapped;
And even the best often
Just guess what’s next.
If I’m to grow now,
It will be through grieving.
It will be through this
Deepening I didn’t choose.
Gregory Orr from The Last Love Poem I Will Ever Write, W.W. Norton & Co., 2019