some old sonnet

So Anne, and everybody, don't you think something we read or someone reads to us can really change  the way we feel, potentially change the way we live our lives, and thus have some impact on a collective consciousness?
I think it is possible that this old Shakespeare sonnet may have changed someone's life just a little bit this evening.
Loving an elderly parent, and learning how to, being willing to love intensely even though it means we may have to then, soon, let go.  One of life's most difficult tasks. Sometimes a work of art can articulate a different way of seeing that can offer an insight into something one has previously experienced as impossible.
In this Shakespeare sonnet, the beauty of the sunset's afterglow, is even especially intensely beautiful in the face of imminent dark. Then read that final couplet that suggests a way to be that is not so evident, nor easy to cultivate.

I believe that poetry can change the way we see the world, and the way we relate to and are in it.


Shakespeare  Sonnet #73

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west;
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the deathbed whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourished by.
  This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
  To love that well which thou must leave ere long.