How shall we change the hard-working elders’ definition of sin—
And further, what exactly shall we wrap our late 19th century evil in,
So that we can do anything? OK first, let’s say
Why we want complete freedom. Today,
As long as it is today, is free.
Tomorrow features regrets and graves,
But today will always be sex and poetry.
So that’s our first good reason. Today
Forgets, doing what it wants now,
And tomorrow will just become today, anyhow.
So let’s do whatever we want for that clever, immediate reason.
And there’s a second reason: we’re lonely;
Evil, as you know, will always be lonely; evil is afraid—
We fear there’s nothing to sex and poetry,
And all that’s bright is destined for the shade.
So we want groups of people, our group
Made of groups, to prevent loneliness. A wild, full company
Of mobs thronging. The one mad troop,
Trooping self-consciously as a troop; we,
As the mob, the mob which knows itself as a mob,
The all, which knows itself as all,
Groups together for this reason alone,
An army for one purpose: standing tall
Against the one real enemy:
Loneliness. We feel this, naturally, because we fear
Darkness growing against our poetry.
What can we say otherwise,
Unless we are many, many eyes?
So this is what we wrap our evil in,
This is how we redefine our elders’ definition of sin:
Something must be done now.
It will be done, for tomorrow becomes today, anyhow,
And it will all be done
By all of us who doubt—which is, everyone—
We, who parade in long troops into the darkening hills, just because we fear
Our poetry and love ends right here.
But it doesn’t. As I pointed out
Today keeps arising, the deferral of our doubt
Is eternal. Our today
Loves eternally. You buy my poem forever,
No matter what it is. This is the way,
No matter who I am, my beliefs, what hills these are, or the weather.