In Homage to Edna St Vincent Millay
To gaze upon truth is to look upon beauty bare,
Though few have done so save those who walk
The halls of academe, and speak with nature in
Its nakedness. We, we such souls who wander in
The wilderness of life, lost, anxious, low in mood,
Beset with this concern, and that conflict,
We have our own truths. That distant footfall
Of sandal on stone is but an echo far away,
Lost within the clamour of our thoughts.
Truth is the silence that follows our plea
Thrown into the aether, or countless rejection
Of casual offers of close engagement. Truth
Is the cold realisation of life taking this rocky path,
Rather than that gold paved avenue to paradise.
Poetry turns from the common man,
Turns on its arrogant heel,
Stalking away toward the cloistered academe.
Nothing is duller or deader than
Poets unable to feel
Love—or compassion, or dream the lofty dream.
Thus poetry turns from you, from me,
And talks to itself, indulgently,
And nobody hears. Quite understandably.