To reject.
To reject everything.
That is not it.
It will neither resurrect the past nor return me to it.
Sleep, Romeo, Juliet, on your headrest of stone feathers.
I won't raise your bound hands from the ashes.
Let the cat visit the deserted cathedrals,
its pupil flashing on the altars.
Let an owlnest on the dead ogive.
In the white noon among the rubble,
let the snakewarm itself on leaves of coltsfoot and in the silence
let him coil in lustrous circles around useless gold.
I won't return.
I want to know what's left
after rejecting youth and spring,
after rejecting those red lips
from which heat seemed to flow
on sultry nights.

-Czeslaw Milosz