John & Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who also had never met. —from a freshman's short story

They were like gazelles who occupied different grassy plains, running in opposite directions from different lions. They were like postal clerks in different zip codes, with different vacation time, their bosses adamant and clock-driven. How could they get together? They were like two people who couldn't get together. John was a Sufi with a love of the dervish, Mary of course a Christian with a curfew. They were like two dolphins in the immensity of the Atlantic, one playful, the other stuck in a tuna net— two absolutely different childhoods! There was simply no hope for them. They would never speak in person. When they ran across that windswept field toward each other, they were like two freight trains.

from Different Hours - Winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Also this poem sums up my recent life in a very clean fashion.

One night they both needed different things of a similar kind; she, solace; he, to be consoled. So after a wine-deepened dinner when they arrived at their house seperately in the same car, each already had been failing the other with what seemed an unbearable delay of what felt due. What solace meant to her was being understood so well you'd give it to her before she asked. To him, consolation was a network of agreements: say what you will as long as you acknowledge what I mean. In the bedroom they undressed and dressed and got into bed. The silence was what fills a tunnel after a locomotive passes through. Days later the one most needy finally spoke. "What's on TV tonight?" he said this time, and she answered, and they were okay again. Each, forever, would remember the failure to give solace, the failure to be consoled. And many, many future nights would find them turning to their respective sides of the bed, terribly awake and twisting up the covers, or, just as likely, moving closer and sleeping forgetfully the night long.

What grieves me is not What lies within the heart, But those things of beauty Which never can be . . .

They are the shapeless shapes Which pass, though sorrow Cannot know them Nor love dream them.

They are as though sadness Were a tree and, one by one, Its leaves were to fall Half outlined in the mist.