You had your chance
All you have now are aches
Longings that could have been fulfilled
Desires satisfied
But now she is gone, puff like the wind
She was here and now there of course
But that is not the problem, is it?
If not, then what causes the worry?
It is that she was not everywhere
Her humanity unwilling to allow her
Curtailing, restricting, holding her down
One home, one school, one path of youth
Never a second chance, never more than once
This wretched historicality
The limitation of human abundance
It is this limitedness that causes the mourning
It is this particularity who is the thief
Oh how I wish her a thousand schools
A million families to grow in
To be ever present everywhere
No time to mark her being
No space to confine her presence
Free to be everywhere
Free to be for ever
But that is not possible, is it?
It is quite the impossible
Therefore we mourn
The death of infinite possibilities
And the passing away of the past
What we mourn
Is this wretched human condition
Fated to particularity
Married to history
Never free to be
To be is but not to be
