Robert Mazzocco, "Cronus"

1.

We’ll say, late at night, or just before it is dawn:
If only God knew how awful it is we’ll feel,
surely, then, God wouldn’t make us suffer as horribly as this.

Though, perhaps, after all, God doesn’t know the whole of our tale.
Or perhaps, after all, God is powerless, too,
or, perhaps, God is simply the God deep within us . . .

Yes, so deep within us, God is
what it is we’ll suffer, as well.

2.

Brecht wrote, in old age, a little poem
about happiness, which, he confessed,
had eluded him all of his life.

And so he stated wryly, if pitifully:
It had better hurry up, at last,
if happiness, you know, is ever to be mine,

because, you see, so little time, of course, is left.

 

 

Robert Mazzocco

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