To those who take my poetry seriously,
Don’t. Unity is the soul
Of poetry. Unity is just out of reach
Of life’s incomplete, enduring reality
Of accidents, memories and slurred speech—
A poem is a part, that for a moment,
Is greater than the whole,
And because it is a moment, dies In a beautiful way.
A life just cannot be neat and tidy that way.
Should I think, for a moment, that my poem is life,
And you must take it seriously, I fail
At everything—the two opposites, poetry and life,
Must live apart—the head never knows its tail,
The body never knows the soul;
You taking this seriously is a part
Which never knows the whole.
Poetry and life will always be at odds,
Life, the clamor of friends and foes
Who change places; life comes and goes.
Poetry is consistent behavior by lovely gods.
They splash, their limbs always near,
Bathing in summer streams moving not,
The very movement of the air—the silent parts of the intricate plot—
Is never moving.
Choose. A love poem. Or me. Who tried to be loving.