That's more or less what he is, and then he wrote a poem about
what he wasn't.
That way you could immediately dispel all your critics.
Think these couple of steps ahead of them.
And I'm Not the Great Diver.
And tomorrow, someone will say, but this poet
has never descended to the sea bottom,
neither has he dug into the packed Earth
of the badgers and the moles.
He has not inspected underground passages,
nor traveled through the dark veins of wood,
nor pierced the flesh, nor penetrated the bone.
He hasn't come down the intestines and the viscera,
nor has he strained them through the arterial channel,
nor navigated with the Spirochaeta
through the blood to nibble at the frozen heart of men.
But he saw the worm in the tree top,
the cloud of locusts in the country's steeple,
the red stagnant holy waters, the yellow midday prayers,
the green spittle on the deformed lips
of the epileptic sextons.
He saw the toad in the cupola, the moth on the altar table,
the termite in the ark, and the weevil and the bishop's miter.
He saw the crooked eye and the wink from the archbishop,
and said, the light is drowning in the dry shadow
inside the well, and it must be saved by a rope of tears.