Linguistically Speaking

They were tough.
They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die.
Grief, terror, love, longing - these were intangibles but the intangibles had their own mass and specific gravity, they had tangible weight. They carried shameful memories. They carried the common secret of cowardice barely restrained, the instinct to run or freeze or hide, and in many respects this was the heaviest burden of all, for it could never be put down, it required perfect balance and perfect posture.
They carried their reputations. They carried the soldier's greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing.
Men killed and died, because they were embarassed not to. It was what had brought them to the war in the first place, nothing positive, no dreams of glory or honor, just to avoid the blush of dishonor. They died so as not to die of embarrassment

.

Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried, p. 21

From: The New York Times, Randy Siegel, October 10, 2005

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediment; Love is not Love,
Which alters when it alteration find
Or bends with the remover to remove

Oh no! It is an ever-fixed mark
Which looks on tempests, but is never shaken
It is the star to ev'ry wand'ring bark
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be take

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks
But bears it out, even to the edge of doom

If this be error, and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved

William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116

(D & C asked me to read this during the church service, which I loved. I'd almost forgotten how much I love to read English aloud).

EINS Darf ich Ihnen mein Herz zu Füssen legen.
ZWEI Wenn Sie mir meinen Fussboden nicht schmutzig machen.
EINS Mein Herz ist rein.
ZWEI Das werden wir ja sehen.
EINS Ich kriege es nicht heraus.
ZWEI Wollen Sie, dass ich Ihnen helfe.
EINS Wenn es Ihnen nichts ausmacht.
ZWEI Es ist mir ein Vergnügen. Ich kriege es auch nicht heraus.
EINS heult.
ZWEI Ich werde es Ihnen herausoperieren. Wozu habe ich ein Taschenmesser. Das werden wir gleich haben. Arbeiten und nicht verzweifeln. So, das hätten wir. Aber das ist ja ein Ziegelstein. Ihr Herz ist ein Ziegelstein.
EINS Aber es schlägt nur für Sie.

Heiner Müller, "Herzstück"

A neighbourhood.
At dusk.

Things are getting ready
to happen
out of sight.

Stars and moths.
And rinds slanting around fruit.

But not yet.

One tree is black.
One window is yellow as butter.

A woman leans down to catch a child
who has run into her arms
this moment.

Stars rise.
Moths flutter.
Apples sweeten in the dark.

Eavan Boland (* 1944, Dublin), "This Moment".