Tigers

What are we now but voices
who promise each other a life
neither one can deliver
not for lack of wanting
but wanting won’t make it so
We cling to a vine
at the cliff’s edge.
There are tigers above
and below. Let us love
one another and let go.

-Eliza Griswold

This has long been my favorite poem, and it’s been running through my mind even more than usual lately. I used to think I didn’t like poetry, and then I came across this piece in the New Yorker in 2005, and it made me stop and catch my breath. And changed the way I felt about poetry forever, which in turn changed my life. That, my friends, is the point of good art.