Truly to sing, that is a different breath.

I would like to sing someone to sleep,
to sit beside someone and be there.
I would like to rock you and sing softly
and go with you to and from sleep.
I would like to be the one in the house
who knew: The night was cold.
And I would like to listen in and listen out
into you, into the world, into the woods.
The clocks shout to one another striking,
and one sees to the bottom of time.
And down below one last, strange man walks by
and rouses a strange dog.
And after that comes silence.
I have laid my eyes upon you wide;
and they hold you gently and let you go
when something stirs in the dark.

And these things
that keep alive on departure know that
you praise them; transient,
they look to us, the most transient,
to be their rescue.
They want us to change them completely,
in our invisible hearts,
into -- O endlessly -- us! Whoever,
finally, we may be.

I hold this to be the highest task for a bond between two people: that each protects the solitude of the other.

This is the miracle that happens every time to those who really love: the more they give, the more they possess.

The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things.