...which doesn't mean you know that in the here and now I am not delirious with hope and admiration in the muted ways I can allow myself to be...

hard not to love your fellow man again, under such circumstances,

harder still to know that's a calamity you're perhaps best rid of....

bus still, but still, your heart gets prised open by degrees,

again

by degrees at this age

careful

anyone,

everyone

might come rushing in....

and you never know, you never know...