The Essence of Vulnerability

Listen (caution: she's a bit overly dramatic): Radio Theatre Group: He Wishes for The Cloths of Heaven by WB Yeats. Performed by Charnie Demir

And if you want, read as well: 


He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven, by WB Yeats


Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams. 


I interpret this poem as trying to capture the vulnerability of love in human relationships. Perhaps the most difficult aspect of life on earth is vulnerability. Without vulnerability, we would all be floating above the ground-we wouldn't feel the rugged earth pushing back, reminding us we are bound by it, that we are mortal, that it is pushing back. Vulnerability makes loving another that much more powerful-because in giving to them, they are taking something so essential to your own life; your joy, your vitality, your renewed sense of purpose in being, possibility even your sanity. 


We are vulnerable, and it is so beautiful but delicate and terrible at the same time.