Classic Poem

You've been given keys
 which would open
 the great invisible halls of abstract hatred.
The very sunlight
exerts its own
will, controls you
living within the silences of this island, the green
and passionate stillness
 reminding you

 —will it last forever?—
at all hours, in all lights
of the persistence
of naked force,

that generous rape of the patient man's mind, that easelessness.

  And yet, how steadfastly
something holds, you
refuse to open anything, refuse

to allow expression of absolute will its articulate entrance, not here.

 Instead, the lyrical animals
move, and there are
sounds of occasional chimes.

How shall we understand
these gardens, this

woodpile, the stone depths
of the well
—that strenuous effort—

the honest mind, the refinement of your only daughter?
 You have been given keys to abstract hatred, yet have stayed
outside, close
 in touch with a various love of earth
for

the reception of its seasons, the mysteries of its changing weather.