[syndicate] intolerable.

[Alan Sondheim]

intolerable.


always, I thought, intolerable.
I cried intolerable, it was a sound.
it is intolerable to decide for or against death.
if I leave a house, I may or may not return.
things may not return exactly, but most often they may return.
death is intolerable. death does not return.
I may decide, I will harbor this animal, this person, this cause.
caring, giving, are implicated; sympathy, and perhaps empathy.
this is a tending, not a shepherding or stewardship.
or a mutual tending, shepherding, stewardship.
this is a continuity, this is constant.
the decision for death is instantaneous at the moment of death.
it is intolerable to make these decisions.
a decision for life may be revoked.
then, again, at the moment of death, implying already decided.
or that action or performative accompanying.
I saw the sedative administered, needle and catheter.
even then, I could have stayed that other, harboring the moment.
I went through with it into eternal darkness.
surely Boojum did not suffer, just as surely she wanted to live.
I made a decision, for her, and against her living.
for in the theater of steel, she resisted everything and strongly.
she defended herself, lovingly as usual, her claws withdrawn,
her mind full, commodious, insistent.
she defended herself, death was the last thing on her mind.
and we held her and tried to comfort her, she growled slowly,
and then lay down and then not at all.
it is intolerable to make these decisions!
one should kill oneself after such decisions! I am a coward!
one should not make these decisions!
for one universe has ended and why should another continue?
WHY?