Well, obviously I've been dealing with the social aspects
of a writer, who of necessity must include himself
in his writing and probably projects upon the world
the loneliness which comes with seclusion.
And it might be a metaphor.
It's quite possible it is a metaphor
for the situation among us all.
At least I write in that belief, that isolation is the condition
in which most of us live.
Anyway, in this poem, I take a different tack entirely.
After all, there is a certain beauty
to dedicating yourself to an intangible, such as writing.
And I call this poem "While I Live."
I dream of language as the sun, I
whisper to that plant whose own language is the wind,
it cups its flower to listen at the winds pressure,
and we talk together of the darkness and language.
What don't they suffered at its command?
Only that I may endure the necessary ecstasy
of my personal death.
I want my trees to love me and my grass
to reach up to the porch, where I
am no one but the end of time, as I stand waiting
for renewal in my brain, because I am what the sun shines forth.
I am labor, I am a disposition to live, who dies?
Only the sun, but you must wait while I live.
That would be a poem that possibly is in response to some
of Wallace Stevens ideas.