dwelt in when the shabby clutter
of the self strung on brilliant
and dark sequences
is given over and the self gives
up and up to the one eternal
known , since the eternal, eternal,
can't break down into knowledge
of itself, the mortal also lost
from the knowledge of itself,
being then where being is:
apart from that eternity what
eternity is there for the self, oh,
none: when terror
turns
to
love, the deepest
beholding, oblivion looks
like paradise, the whole place
not at all imagination's work
but a real land we enter when
kissing the world goodbye we kiss
the brow love needs no lips
to
kiss.
VICKI HEARNE
Comparative Enormity
Once the Pacific grabbed me out
From an idle swim, and in that unutterable
I learned that you can't curse
The ocean when you need to. Compare: Language
(In which we are like marine fish,
