so much of night slips away as i watch waiting for an asteroid to hit—it never seems to come, but in the wake of the recent tragedy, i wonder how much of my hoping is just vain romantic rambling from my tower. the poet is called to answer, and while i wrote in the wake of 9/11, i have little to say that approaches the enormity of the present situation.
and in the morning paper today, i read about methane being found in the atmosphere of mars. distracted for a moment, i thought of bacterial life elsewhere, space sails, and the distant future in which i’ll return—i have to because i’m sure far from enlightenment this go round, and the whirling chaos of the tsunami faded before me.
to be an american requires avoiding the ache of so many issues. the problem then lies in the contradiction that to be a poet one cannot avoid the issues, so to be an american poet requires one to be face to face with oneself (and to become a fragment in order to shake the nice sheen on the american myth).
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