I’ve had some bad news. I’m not ready to write about it, and I’m mainly in a mood for – I don’t know. At different times in my life I’d have got drunk, or hidden from all my friends till I’d dealt with it, or switched myself off but gone on doing what I usually do, but not really being there, or playing bad music incredibly loudly, or shouting poetry, in private of course. Sorry, you get this lot:
Alas! I have nor hope nor health,
Nor peace within nor calm around,
Nor that content surpassing wealth
The sage in meditation found,
And walked with inward glory crowned—
Nor fame, nor power, nor love, nor leisure.
[…]
Yet now despair itself is mild,
Even as the winds and waters are;
I could lie down like a tired child,
And weep away the life of care
Which I have borne and yet must bear,
Till death like sleep might steal on me,
And I might feel in the warm air
My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea
Breathe o’er my dying brain its last monotony.
Riwha Titokowaru
.
But also, less weary, some defiance from Titokowaru:
“E kore a hau e mate kāore a hau e mate,
ka mate ano te mate.”
“I shall not die; I shall not die.
When death itself is dead I shall be alive.”