Good news is when you’ll be teaching American Literature at a university in the fall. Even better is when you can do a section on Louise Gluck: some lines of hers:
I think it would have been better to love no one than to love you
The darkness lifts, imagine, in your lifetime…
Extend yourself — it is the Nile, the sun is shining,
everywhere you turn is luck.
FULL POEM The Undertaking
The darkness lifts, imagine, in your lifetime.
There you are – cased in clean bark you drift
through weaving rushes, fields flooded with cotton.
You are free. The river films with lilies,
shrubs appear, shoots thicken into palm. And now
all fear gives way: the light
looks after you, you feel the waves’ goodwill
as arms widen over the water; Love
the key is turned. Extend yourself –
it is the Nile, the sun is shining,
everywhere you turn is luck.