Thinking of a specific poem--Olson's "Maximus, to himself"

Olson's "Maximus, to himself" starts with the following lines:

I have had to learn the simplest things

last. Which made for difficulties.

Even at sea I was slow, to get the hand out, or to cross   

a wet deck.

 

Many parts of this poem strike me, but this beginning pulls me in with its generous offer of

openness.  It's a confession of vulnerability, but one that is easy to connect with.  If you are 

slow at sea and you are trying to make a life at sea, things are going to be hard. 

Yet we know that the sea is just a metaphor for his life.  He is stating he is not good at the 

daily grind.  He is more suited to the life of a thinker:

I have made dialogues,

have discussed ancient texts.

As a poet/writer, he is more apt to discuss life, and it might be easy to leave an interpretation at that, but he goes a step further.

 

     I stood estranged
from that which was most familiar. Was delayed,
and not content with the man’s argument
that such postponement
is now the nature of
It is undone business
I speak of, this morning.  

       obedience. 

 

He is suggesting that we have become estranged from our nature in the daily obedience we have to 
modern life.  He doesn't have that obedience, and since he doesn't, he is estranged from 

those around him as well, unless they share his penchant. 

 

The last section starts with this: "It is undone business / I speak of, this morning." He is confessing 
and trying to figure out his place, but his place is outside and alone in a society that values 
production, that values someone good at getting a line out.