I got married recently, a year ago.
It was a very traumatic event because I
had formed a life in which I was comfortable,
which I had mastered, and one of its features
was the recalcitrant beloved, or the absent beloved,
or the thorny beloved.
And I married someone who threatened to make me happy.
[LAUGHTER]
This was very frightening.
And right before we got married, I was really distressed.
And he understood the source of the distress,
and he took my hand and he said, well, Louise,
I can't promise to make you unhappy, and then he paused
and then he said, you might try reading the newspapers.
Anyway, it's a poem that I wrote for my husband which is called,
"For John," which is his name.
Look at my hand, poor beast, too frightened to be fed.
It holds to what it knows.
A whole mind can be like that, like a sky ruled
by the clean black of directive, when the limbs are
free of blossom and subterfuge.
There are lives sustained by negation.
Do you know what it means to let go?