I'm going to read you just a couple of short pieces
from the new manuscript, which is about halfway done.
Hopefully, this one won't take me 20 years to finish.
One of the things that you should know about this
particular piece is Keats's idea of negative capability,
which to sum up in a kind of pedestrian way is to understand
and accept there are things in life that we cannot know,
and to be OK with that.
"Negative Capability and the Superposition
of Animate Matter."
You are certain you've passed this tree before.
The ridged bark, the needles, evergreen crush of wind
familiar as an ocean you dreamt in and the stone beach.
You're lost after all, and the sun is more behind clouds
each time you gauge north or not.
Not even a compass would help you identify the lichen that
clings to the fur.
Not even a simile would put up with you.
After all, you're lost and have passed this tree
before, haven't you, after all?
Needle's done as beeswax collecting on the ground.
Behind you is the way you came.
Ahead seems more the same.
Get lost, they prescribe.
Find yourself, they lament.
Once when you were a child, you were lost in the woods.
Every tree looked exactly like the next.
And now is once and now is again and the problem with trees
is you can't see past them.
Knowing, after all, is lost on you.