in my mailbox this morning from Garrison Keillor which I found relevant to not only the occasion (Today is the anniversary of the Titanic sinking) but our time for many of us as we know it.

The Titanic by June Robertson Beisch

So this is how it feels, the deck tilting,

the world slipping away as one

sitting at a desk writes a check.

The Titanic went down titanically

like a goddess glittering,

Pinioned to an iceberg, she sank

almost thankfully while tiny mortals leapt into the sea

and the band played Nearer My God to Thee.

But what happened to the signals of distress?

Nobody believed it was all really happening.

I still can't believe that it happened to me.

As a child, I stared horrified at the photograph

and the vision of that scene in the moonlit sea.

We will be one of the survivors, we think,

then something looms up like catastrophe.

All life, it seems, is the morning after

and love is the most beautiful of absolute disasters.

"The Titanic" by June Beisch, from Fatherless Woman. © Cape Cod Literary Press, 2004.