A Poem A Day from the George Hail Library ~ Selected by Maria Horvath: Why We Must Struggle

A Poem A Day from the George Hail Library ~ Selected by Maria Horvath: Why We Must Struggle
Excerpt:
Why must we struggle? asks the poet.

Anything of worth, including love, demands the best of us.

WHY WE MUST STRUGGLE

If we have not struggled
as hard as we can
at our strongest
how will we sense
the shape of our losses
or know what sustains
us longest or name
what change costs us
saying how strange
it is that one sector
of the self can step in
for another in trouble
how loss activates
a latent double how
we can feed
as upon nectar
upon need?

~ Kay Ryan, born in 1945, American poet