Late Fragment

Do you also occasionally get some version of this?

Bath-time, bubbles pop-popping on the surface, feet poking out above the overflow drain, a stubborn stain glaring down from the ceiling, droplets racing down the steamed mirror, clatter of experimental cooks in the kitchen, in my case there are children and their friends trying their hands at curry, a playlist on the boom from my dance community, animals tucked away for the night, thoughts of siblings and their families gathering for the weekly shabbat dinner in far lands.

Then, you dry those fingers and randomly grab a book from above the towel rack. You open it anywhere, only to find the words you were looking for just moments ago. This is the page that jumped open so perfectly…

And did you get what

you wanted from this life, even so?

I did.

And what did you want?

To call myself beloved, to feel myself

beloved on the earth.

(That is Raymond Carver’s, ‘Late Fragment’ from his last book of poems: A New Path to the Waterfall, 1988).