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“Reason not the need“

King Lear, II iv

Absence is soft ash blown back to earth;
Solitude what fire refused to burn.
Absence casts no shadow on the ground;
Solitude an iron vault of cloud.

Absence is the endless rolling sea
And solitude the raft I made for me
Your absence is the moonlit silvered leaves
My solitude the forest turned to steel.

Absence is the surface of the moon,
Martian prairie, silence after tune;
Solitude the theatre curtain drawn
And dancers frozen in rehearsal rooms.

Absence is the sun-parched water butt,
Solitude the ceaseless dripping tap;
Absence is a gale that sweeps the skies,
Solitude the underworld of lies.

By day my life revives beneath the sun;
At night that resurrection’s dead and done:
Wraiths of introspection work sick looms
To disinter the bones of absent tombs

I know this: yet from far beyond my heart
You look across and turn my tears to art;
Your absence is the reason I confine
Myself to drinking solitude’s black wine.