Sententious Symbiosis
“The Roman historian Tacitus records an early Germanic gnome: ‘Women must weep and
men remember.’” Michael Schmidt, The Story of Poetry, 5
Sometimes a war is small and very large
At once. A woman and a man are two
But forced together they produce a charge
Unguessable. Is it the woman who
Must weep and must that be because the man
Has hurt her? Must the man remember he
Caused tears or is it that his mind must span
The reason for the sadness? Or is she
The cause, through crying, of his pain? Perhaps
There was some other cause, a murdered son,
And vengeance now their purpose. Her collapse
Will help man find the strength to use that gun.
..She has reminding mourning as her thrill.
….He must remember long enough to kill.