Unlearning the poem: lesson one

February 22, 1980

It is never enough to catch and hold imagined worlds with Mirrored waterfalls Nor yet sufficient to sustain affection for velvet armchairs Drawn close to windows that face the sea Even familiar voices heard singing in abandoned rooms cannot always Clarify reality's absolutely calibrated Now After the poem is forgotten and the metaphor but a winter Shadow on a page the truth must keep in letters large enough to read Life by.