The question of tenderness

How I would like to believe in tenderness-
The face of the effigy, gentled by candles,
Bending, on me in particular, its mild eyes.

I have fallen a long way.

-Sylvia Plath, "The Moon and the Yew Tree"

Another series of points, revolving around the word "tenderness":

the end of an exhausting week, the body collapsing into vague relief; limbs weakening to softness; the mind yearning for rest; that conversation on poetry with my daughter, exchanging notes on Christina Rossetti's "Remember" and agreeing on the sadness in its lines; next, a flashback of my sunlit childhood, glimpses of orange twilights, a song; that word, tenderness, this line, "because there, too, is tenderness" limning my thoughts like some sad loveliness; pages on a page, Sylvia Plath, "The Moon and the Yew Tree", that line, "How I would like to believe in tenderness--".

The question of love breaks, certain, under its own weight. Remembrance, instrospection--they come in, swift and incorrigible. The night falls, wistful, its softness more pronounced. Solitude, daughters, childhood, the promise of sleep. Where there is poetry, where there is tenderness, the heart succumbs.

Where--