It was many years before
It occurred to me that
Everyone is invisible.
That must be because
We are artists.
For who is so arrogant
As to tell the dancer
From the peanut-vendor?
Yet, I know I have known
The true vision of beauty.
She was fifteen and young
And I too was fifteen,
And that explains that.
For that was before I found religion.
For before I knew the essential unity
I once used words
Such as magic and ephemeral
Instead of peanut-vendor;
But it is all one,
I guess.
Still, certain female people
Insist upon showing me their work
And rightly so.
I am a fine critic —
honest, forthright, arrogant
and sympathetic.
Though my intentions are obvious
I am still able to hide them.
But for some obscure reason
It seems that whatever I do
Ends in a room pacing.
O, I am the timeless romantic
Though they would say
“Romanticism is dead.”
Now, clear as a soldier
I must proclaim
That yet another year
Has flown again.
And that is good,
For I was becoming
Quite bored with this one.
This piece originally appeared in Poetry 1969-1972, Writing Folio Number Two, published in 1972.