John of the Cross

Alive without living
in me, my life

that is waiting
for living not dying.

But nothing’s doing,
life that I do not live

living a lack.
Death is all

it has to give:
die a death blacker

than ever befell
a living soul.

To lack what I love
and love that lack,

die the death
I live deprived

of you, and taste
grief for two. I die

that life, and if you
withdraw,

who are but a lack,
how to make you,

your absence,
come back?