“Speech After Long Silence”

by Little Miss Attila on December 18, 2012

One never knows which is worse—blogging, which makes one feel guilty, or not-blogging, which makes one feel guiltier.

I think I’ve spent as much time mourning over the collapse of my last enterprise as I spent involved in that enterprise, actually. So it’s time to get a handle on my electronic life (beyond, of course, FaceBook).

In a couple of weeks it will have been a year since I had a drink. In four months it will have been 11 years since I last worked a “real job.”

One never knows how to change anything, really—whether it’s better to take charge of one’s destiny, or whether that constitutes trying to force things before their times. It’s impossible to be certain.

“After Long Silence

Speech after long silence; it is right,
All other lovers being estranged or dead,
Unfriendly lamplight hid under its shade,
The curtains drawn upon unfriendly night,
That we descant and yet again descant
Upon the supreme theme of Art and Song:
Bodily decrepitude is wisdom; young
We loved each other and were ignorant.”

—William Butler Yeats

{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }

Chuck April 16, 2014 at 2:20 pm

Congratulations on not having had a drink in a year. My wife has struggled with this her entire life. It’s the hardest thing there is to do.

One day at a time

Reply

miriam February 10, 2015 at 3:14 pm

Lovely poem. Congratulations on your sobriety, and may you continue to flourish.

Reply

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