" You hear yourself walking on the snow.
You hear the absence of the birds.
A stillness so complete, you hear
the whispering inside of you. Alone
morning after morning, and even more
at night. They say we are born alone,
to live and die alone. But they are wrong.
We get to be alone by time, by luck,
or by misadventure.

— Jack Gilbert, from “Betrothed,” Collected Poems (Knopf, 2012) "

― Jack Gilbert , Collected Poems