A physical measure of loss and longing.

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I found the most heavenly poem today. Short and poignant, it captures the physical effects of loss and the despair of loss. Nothing comes close to the inertia and despair one experiences on losing someone close. In Kenneth Rexroth's translation, this anonymous Six Dynasties poet descibes the destructive effects wrought on the body by the mind

I can no longer untangle my hair.
I feed on my own flesh in secret.
Do you want to measure how much I long for you?
Look at my belt, how loose it hands.

- Anonymous

From One Hunded More Poems from the Chinese Love and the Turning Year - Kenneth Rexroth

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