The Question Posed by Grey

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, sayI missed one terribly all day.
Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total darkness sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.

Wystan Hugh Auden
The More Loving One


...when I was a child I remembered agonizing on the fact of my existence. I was but ten but looked older (weary even) as the nights found me again and again, awake with the gears of my mind running. Sleep provided me neither refuge or balm. And the days held nothing but exhaustive thought while the night its terror. For what I saw (or thought I "saw") was nothing but the cage afforded by my senses. Nothing was real as far as what is thought of as real- held suspect but decided by its consuming essence. I feared closing my eyes, dreaded slipping through the cracks and into nothingness. Oblivion offered a release, a freedom I dared not take. It was absolute. The utter totalness would be too much for a limited frame of clay. For clay starts to run at the thought of Tears, and turns to cracks under the sun of Wrath. For dust is dust and clay nothing more than dust with ambition.