Are you saying I cannot say what I see?
What I’m seeing happened a long time before I began writing poetry.
I’m making this poem as obscure as I can;
I don’t want you to think this poem is the same as the man
Who wants you to see what the poet is telling you to see—
After all, if I tell you what I see,
You’ll confuse the telling with the poetry.
You might say you cannot see what I see.
There is none as beautiful as she,
And from all distances and angles,
But what do I praise, if I assume visibility?
You are right to condemn this poem,
For, of course, you cannot see
Her, and further, she happened a long time ago,
When I first dreamed how poetry
Would depict her in her individual actions—
When I first thought of poets, and their lives, and their factions.