The Whole Shadow Of Man Is Only

Close, Close All Night The Lovers Keep. They Turn Together In Their Sleep, Close As Two Pages In A Book That Read Each Other In The Dark. Each Knows All The Other Knows, Learned By Heart From Head To Toes.

All My Life I Have Lived And Behaved Very Much Like The Sandpiper - Just Running Down The Edges Of Different Countries And Continents, 'looking For Something'.

It Is Like What We Imagine Knowledge To Be: Dark, Salt, Clear, Moving, Utterly Free.

Dreams Were The Worst. Of Course I Dreamed Of Food And Love, But They Were Pleasant Rather Than Otherwise. But Then I'd Dream Of Things Like Slitting A Baby's Throat, Mistaking It For A Baby Goat. I'd Have Nightmares Of Other Islands Stretching Away From Mine, Infinities Of Islands, Islands Spawning Islands, Like Frogs' Eggs Turning Into Polliwogs Of Islands, Knowing That I Had To Live On Each And Every One, Eventually, For Ages, Registering Their Flora, Their Fauna, Their Geography.

If After I Read A Poem The World Looks Like That Poem For 24 Hours Or So I'm Sure It's A Good One—and The Same Goes For Paintings.