Saturday, December 24, 2016

24 December 2016


However beautiful the sound of a cry of woe may be, one cannot wish to hear it again; it is more human to wish to cure the woe. At the cemetery I saw a woman pour tea in a paper cup; her mother placed it on a grave. All I saw was the matted gray hair of a woman sleeping beside the Kāne'ohe Post Office, her things arranged neatly beside an open blue umbrella. The President of Need would take that from her. No blue umbrellas! Cloth is so weak! “I'm fine for a while and then a feeling of existential dread comes over me again.” The tall handsome man with AIDS could not sleep, because he might die if he did. So she came and watched television with him. One night he asked her to lie down, and she did. Your best weapon now will be a toothbrush and shampoo, and your own frail body.


--24 December 2016

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