The Bogholes Might Be Atlantic Seepage. The

The Fact Of The Matter Is That The Most Unexpected And Miraculous Thing In My Life Was The Arrival In It Of Poetry Itself - As A Vocation And An Elevation Almost.

Anything Can Happen Is Also, Incidentally, A Poem That Arose From Teaching. I'd Talked About The Horace Ode (i, 34) [on Which The Poem Is Based] In A Lecture I Gave At Harvard In The Fall Of 2000 Entitled Bright Boltsand Remembered It After The Twin Towers Attack.

It Is Difficult At Times To Repress The Thought That History Is About As Instructive As An Abattoir; That Tacitus Was Right And That Peace Is Merely The Desolation Left Behind After The Decisive Operations Of Merciless Power.

The Gift Of Writing Is To Be Self-forgetful... To Get A Surge Of Inner Life Or Inner Supply Or Unexpected Sense Of Empowerment, To Be Afloat, To Be Out Of Yourself.

So Hope For A Great Sea-change On The Far Side Of Revenge. Believe That Further Shore Is Reachable From Here. Believe In Miracles And Cures And Healing Wells.