April 2006 (In Memoriam Sarah Teasdale) Poem by Anthony Weir

What do I care in the cold winds and languor of spring
That my face and my frame are not I?
They are just furniture, but my poems are what I feel,
I am a vacuum, they are a cry.

Why should I care? My life will soon finish
And the world that was will be holocaust, flood and drought.
My heart is a birth-wound, my mind a protest, a shout,
And only at death will their pain and their noise diminish.

Through the years I have learned
How few men and ideas are worthy of trust.
I have seen my greatest love
Murdered, trampled in the dust,
And fears I never knew before
Burrow into my heart's core.
Hope little. Ask for less.
Who dares to talk of happiness!