Sublime

There was no human figure near him nor any sound borne to him over the air. But the tide was near the turn and already the day was on the wane.

14 For a long time I have held my peace, I have kept still and restrained myself; now I will cry out like a woman in labor, I will gasp and pant. 15 I will lay waste mountains and hills, and dry up all their herbage; I will turn the rivers into islands, and dry up the pools.

Robinson Jeffers

“Ada, our ardors and arbors”—a dactylic trimeter that was to remain Van Veen’s only contribution to Anglo-American poetry—sang through his brain.

Talk of misfortunes and misfortunes will come.

Rotten patches were beginning to appear in my inner being, black spongy growths that were spreading more and more. And God sat up in his heaven keeping a watchful eye on me, making sure that my destruction took place according to all the rules of the game, slowly and steadily, with no letup.