Whenever we can....

We love life whenever we can
a variation after Mahmoud Darwish


We love life whenever we can.
We enter the grocer’s, the baker’s, the chemist’s
    the post office daily.
We love life whenever we can.
We borrow each other’s books and paperclips
    and forget to return them.
We spruce ourselves up for a meeting, order
    a taxi, climb into a bus or a train.
We love life whenever we can
    and so we sign letters and cards and spend
    the evening walking the street
when the winter is fiercest and the light
    in the windows and amusement arcades
    snarls at the darkness and the sea is quietly chomping at
    the cliff and the owl and the rat and the fox move over and
    through and we hear them and listen.
We love life whenever we can.