TWO KINDS OF SUFFERING


          The humility of objects
          shames me into silence,
          into self-effacement.
          Like this cup with the broken handle,
          still usable, but wounded in its integrity.

          I sip from its cracked lip,
          the cup without a loop
          and it burns my fingers
          scalds my mouth — yet I go on holding it
          and even add more boiling water.

          My favourite cup.
          It is just an ordinary object, scarred
          by life, and this is the one way we communicate,
          through the numb exercise of pain —
          two kinds of suffering.


           © James Kirkup, 2008




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