Shrinking experience is the only pleasure.
Too much for you to understand—and you rebel.
Endless vistas of people wrestling with truth
In complex urgency is the real description of hell.
The Chinese epigram of swift delight
Says drinking alone on a summer night
Surpasses all knowledge, and who cares if the epigram is right?
Later you may come to see,
“Too much drinking isn’t good for me,”
But so what? Let’s say your pleasure doesn’t come from drinking.
It still arrives when your world is shrinking,
When poetry, loyalty, music, a small square
Narrows your vision down to whatever you need to be there:
Velocity, a kiss, a promise, an eye that looks,
A thank you—to preface all endings which introduce all books
You happen to read, while waiting
For your life to start: A long, ambiguous love. A sweet, sharp hating.