Saturday, November 22, 2008

Something in the Nature of a Box

Is it a gift or a casket? It is the gift if a casket: reader, bury your desires. It is a casket of a gift: beware the offerings of strangers, for all pleasure is a foretelling.

As the composer of this gift I have no perspective. I have a condition. My condition as of the moment is that of a man who recognizes that he has accomplished what he set out to do. It is neither good or bad, this accomplishment. I have written the poems in the manuscripts I needed to write. I have done my work. I have made it available. I have settled the contract. In that, I take pride. I am through. And I will move on.

And so, I place and arrange the boxes of my strophes in the boxes of my poems in the boxes of my books into the box which is detailed in the beginning to the end, from the depth of my experience to the height of my ambition. I present this box to you, the reader. May you be as successful in doing what you set out to do, and a good deal wiser than I in recognizing when you have finished your work.

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