Misreading a Line by Holderlin

For weeks I’ve not been well but refuse a doctor.

For weeks I’ve been unhappy but refuse the past.

For weeks I’ve misread a line of poetry

As “the aging of the dead” and not “the aging and the dead.”

For weeks I’ve been depressed

Thinking the dead grow older. One misreading

And I have wasted a thousand years in eternity.

 

 

 

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