Letter, with Lines from Nâzim Hikmet

Nâzim, you sound so serious when you say 
    however and wherever we are,
        we must live as if we will never die.

But of course we'll die, Nâzim; we are 
    already dying every day. I think perhaps you 
        only mean to say, fill every shell with 

whatever you can think of that is good— moss 
    and little stones, that blue bandana above 
        the treeline; the square of chocolate you 

were saving for a future treat; the bottle 
    with rich, dark ink. And I know the earth's 
        mantle will harden again and grow cold, 

but first we'll sit in the heat, knees drawn up 
    as if in a sauna, sweat wrung out and dripping 
        from our pores like oil pressed from seeds 

and grain. Do you recall mornings when fog or mist 
    rested low on the ground, so the world looked both
        hurt and tender? Nâzim, I have always taken to heart

what you say about living and how it is no laughing matter. 
     Even as a chorus of raucous gulls will circle tourists 
        basking in a haze of sunscreen at the ocean front,  

I can never forget what it is that should be my whole 
     occupation; how much work it requires, in these times 
        of sorrow, to concentrate on breath after breath like belief.