How is it I can eat bread here and cut meat,

And in quiet shake salt, speak of the meal,

Pour water, serve my son's small plate?

Here now I love well my wife's gold hair combed,

Her voice, her violin, our books on shelves in another room,

The tall chest shining darkly in supper-light.

I have read tonight

The sudden meaningless foreign violent death

Of a nation we both loved, hope

For a country not ours killed. But blacker than print:

For the million people no house now. For me

A new hurt to the old health of the heart once more:

That sore, that heavy, that dull and I think now incurable

Pain:

Seeing love hated, seeing real death,

Knowing evil alive I was taught was conquered.

How shall I cut this bread gladly, unless more share

The day's meals I earn?

Or offer my wife meat from our fire, our fortune?

It should not have taken me so long to learn.

But how can I speak aloud at my own table tonight

And not curse my own food, not cry out death,

And not frighten my young son?