For even sorrow
Seems bearable when studied at a distance
This quote refers to the fact that, in retrospect, even the bleakest of times seem bearable. Sorrow, once it passes, appears to have been less painful.
Why does that evening’s memory
Return with this night’s storm–
A party twenty years ago,
Its disappointments warm?
The writer talks about a memory of a summer storm twenty years ago. The storm of this night reminds him of the storm twenty years ago where he met someone who could have potentially been a love interest. However, their interaction was cut short and nothing came of it. The writer pines for what could have been and feels the disappointment of that night twenty years ago as if it is still fresh.
And memory insists on pining
For places it never went,
As if life would be happier
Just by being different.
The 'what ifs' and the 'maybes' are eating at the writer as he thinks about the potential love interest he met twenty years ago. He pines for this love even though they never had the chance to fall in love. He thinks about how life may have been happier just by virtue of being different. This reflects that the writer's life at this point may not be happy. It is a classic "the grass is always greener on the other side" situation.
The world does not need words. It articulates itself
in sunlight, leaves, and shadows. The stones on the path
are no less real for lying uncatalogued and uncounted.
Through these lines, the writer is trying to say that the world and it's beauty does not need to be defined through words and by categorizing it. It is beautiful and real in its own right without human beings ascribing value to it or trying to define it. The world speaks for itself in the way the sun shines, the leaves move in the wind, and through other natural expressions.
