Not so very far away, ever....

"Those hours given over to basking in the glow of an imagined future, of being carried away in streams of promise by a love or a passion so strong that one felt altered forever and convinced that even the smallest particle of the surrounding world was charged with purpose of impossible grandeur; ah, yes, and one would look up into the trees and be thrilled by the wind-loosened river of pale, gold foliage cascading down and by the high, melodious singing of countless birds; those moments, so many and so long ago, still come back, but briefly, like fireflies in the perfumed heat of summer night."

- Mark Strand
The Old Age of Nostalgia
Almost Invisible

The Spectacular Difference”

In the morning I mused

It won’t return, the magic of life
it won’t return
Suddenly in my house the sun
became alive for me
and the table with bread on it
gold
and the flower on the table
and the glasses
gold
And what happened to the sadness
In the sadness too, radiance. 

Zelda Schneurson Mishkovsky, “The Spectacular Difference”