Considering his vocation in old age, the poet reflects wryly on what he can expect from a lifetime’s work
Silkworms Work and Love Till Death
He kept a list of poems there were to write,
A personal list, imperative and sour –
Beyond his windows all was digital,
The nominative unpleasantness of thought
Recurred, he reasoned, every day in speech.
He feared the public knew the thing he was,
And one of those who would not be alone.
In blood one day he framed a strategy,
The curt unpitied sadness of a sage
He read about at some South China Court
Who slated certainty and cut up sights
To keep them small – Of course you must still write,
The Master wrote, but little that you mean:
Your paper should not die to prove your words.
He kept a list of poems there were to write,
A personal list, imperative and sour –
Beyond his windows all was digital,
The nominative unpleasantness of thought
Recurred, he reasoned, every day in speech.
He feared the public knew the thing he was,
And one of those who would not be alone.
In blood one day he framed a strategy,
The curt unpitied sadness of a sage
He read about at some South China Court
Who slated certainty and cut up sights
To keep them small – Of course you must still write,
The Master wrote, but little that you mean:
Your paper should not die to prove your words.
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