"Vivas to those who have failed: for they become the river."

-From "Vivas To Those Who Have Failed: The Paterson Silk Strike, 1913" by MARTÍN ESPADA

"Failing and Flying" by Jack Gilbert

Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.

It's the same when love comes to an end,

or the marriage fails and people say

they knew it was a mistake, that everybody

said it would never work. That she was

old enough to know better. But anything

worth doing is worth doing badly.

Like being there by that summer ocean

on the other side of the island while

love was fading out of her, the stars

burning so extravagantly those nights that

anyone could tell you they would never last.

Every morning she was asleep in my bed

like a visitation, the gentleness in her

like antelope standing in the dawn mist.

Each afternoon I watched her coming back

through the hot stony field after swimming,

the sea light behind her and the huge sky

on the other side of that. Listened to her

while we ate lunch. How can they say

the marriage failed? Like the people who

came back from Provence (when it was Provence)

and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.

I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,

but just coming to the end of his triumph.

From "Passing Through" by Stanley Kunitz

The way I look

at it, I’m passing through a phase:   

gradually I’m changing to a word.   

Whatever you choose to claim   

of me is always yours;

nothing is truly mine

except my name. I only

borrowed this dust.

"Poem Without An End" by Yehuda Amichai (translated by Chana Bloch)

Inside the brand-new museum

there’s an old synagogue.

Inside the synagogue

is me.

Inside me

my heart.

Inside my heart

a museum.

Inside the museum

a synagogue,

inside it

me,

inside me

my heart,

inside my heart

a museum