Vladimir Nabokov posted:

That tasteless venture helped me in a way,
I learnt what to ignore in my survey
of death's abyss.

And when we lost our child,
I knew there would be nothing. No self-styled
spirit wold touch a keyboard of dry wood
to rap out her pet name. No phantom would
rise gracefully to welcome you and me
in the dark garden, near the shagbark tree.

"What is that funny creaking? Do you hear?"
"It is the shutter on the stairs my dear."

"If you're not sleeping, let's turn on the light."
"I hate that wind." "Let's play some chess." "Alright."

"I swear it's not the shutter. There, again!"
"It is a tendril fingering the pane."

"What glided down the roof and made that thud?"
"It is old winter tumbling in the mud."

"And now what shall I do? My knight is pinned."

Who rides so late in the night and the wind?
It is the writer's grief. It is the wild
March wind. It is the father with his child.
Later came minutes, hours, whole days, at last,
when she'd be absent from our thoughts, so fast
did life, the woolly caterpillar run.