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The shape of luck

If we have not struggled
as hard as we can
at our strongest
how will we sense
the shape of our losses
or know what sustains
us longest or name
what change costs us,
saying how strange
it is that one sector
of the self can step in
for another in trouble,
how loss activates
a latent double, how
we can feed as upon nectar
upon need.

– Kay Ryan, “Why We Must Struggle” in The Best of It

Lately I’ve been learning the shapes of things, of gains and losses. By feel. By chance. Stumbling through an unlit room, pressing a palm to the walls and bumping into the stairs. Then waking in a vineyard. A lucky one, when I’m lucky.