All the gentleness, a life of gentleness,

Implodes when it abuts the other—

The rocky shores, the jabbed pin which pierces

The cloud of cotton which tries to come,

Descend, surround, engulf. It is no contest,

Yet, the gentleness persists, is persistent,

Is insistent, wills away the pricks, the pricks

Of pins, of people—people can be such pricks . . .

And be so gentle—there it is—the pain and the cloud.

One or the another will wax as the other wanes,

One supersedes the other: pain/cottony

Wonderfulness—one almost unendurable,

Or, unendurable, the other fragile, uncertain,

Maybe fleeting. Both conceived in holy jest.