to be dead is to stop believing in the masterpieces we will create tomorrow. ~patrick kavanaugh, poet

i have this book of poetry from way the heck back in college; this is the first line of a poem that i have remembered and returned to over the years. later in the poem things take a turn for the bitter: you know no one loves you for what you have done, but for what you might do.

what’s odd to me now is that it is the later line that has stuck in my head. i went right for the bitterness of the “dead” narrator, clinging to past accomplishments. this last time when i went back to the poem again — the first line hits me. smack. i get it.

to be alive is to love the blank page for its true nature: an opening in the universe that invites you in.

collected poems (norton) by patrick kavanagh