Poem: On Bliss by Paul Claudel

There is no one of my brothers [or sisters]... that I can do without... In the heart of the meanest miser, the most squalid prostitute, the most miserable drunkard, there is an immortal soul with holy aspirations, which deprived of daylight, worships in the night. I hear them speaking when I speak and weeping when I go down on my knees. There is no one of them I can do without. Just as there are many stars in the heavens and their power of calculation is beyond my reckoning so also there are many living beings... I need them all in my praise of God. There are many living souls but there is not one of them that I'm not in communion in the sacred apex where we utter together the Our Father.