Reading Aloud to My Father I chose the book haphazardfrom the shelf, but with Nabokov's firstsentence I knew it wasn't the thingto read to a dying man: The cradle rocks above an abyss, it began, and common sense tells us that our existenceis but a brief crack of lightbetween two eternities of darkness. The words disturbed both of us immediately, and I stopped. With music it was the same --Chopin's Piano Concerto – he asked meto turn it off. He ceased eating, and dranklittle, while the tumors briskly appropriatedwhat was left of him. But to return to the cradle rocking. I think Nabokov had it wrong. This is the abyss. That's why babies howl at birth, and why the dying so often reachfor something only they can apprehend. At the end they don't want their handsto be under the covers, and if you should putyour hand on theirs in a tentative gestureof solidarity, they'll pull the hand free;and you must honor that desire, and let them pull it free. Jane Kenyon
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More Quotes By Jane Kenyon
  1. The poet's job is to put into words those feelings we all have that are so deep, so important, and yet so difficult to name, to tell the truth in such a beautiful way, that people cannot live without it.
  2. HappinessThere's just no accounting for happiness, or the way it turns up like a prodigalwho comes back to the dust at your feethaving squandered a fortune far away. And how can you not forgive? You make a feast in honor of whatwas lost, and take...
  3. To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoopin the oats, to air in the lunglet evening come. Let it come, as it will, and don'tbe afraid. God does not leave uscomfortless, so let evening come.
  4. Reading Aloud to My Father I chose the book haphazardfrom the shelf, but with Nabokov's firstsentence I knew it wasn't the thingto read to a dying man: The cradle rocks above an abyss, it began, and common sense tells us that our existenceis but a...
  5. OtherwiseI got out of bed on two strong legs. It might have been otherwise. I ate cereal, sweet milk, ripe, flawless peach. It might have been otherwise. <span style="margin:15px; display:block"></span>I took the dog uphill to the birch wood. All morning I did the work I...
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