If After I Read A Poem The

I Caught A Tremendous Fish And Held Him Beside The Boat Half Out Of Water, With My Hook Fast In A Corner Of His Mouth. He Didn't Fight. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I Stared And Stared And Victory Filled Up The Little Rented Boat From The Pool Of Bilge Where Oil Had Spread A Rainbow Around The Rusted Engine To The Bailer Rusted Orange, The Sun-cracked Thwarts The Oarlocks On Their Strings, The Gunnels-until Everything Was Rainbow, Rainbow, Rainbow! And I Let The Fish Go.

And As To Experience-well, Think How Little Some Good Poets Have Had, Or How Much Some Bad Ones Have.

Time To Plant Tears, Says The Almanac. The Grandmother Sings To The Marvelous Stove And The Child Draws Another Inscrutable House.

I Am Overcome By My Own Amazing Sloth...can You Please Forgive Me And Believe That It Is Really Because I Want To Do Something Well That I Don't Do It At All?

Open The Book. (the Gilt Rubs Off The Edges Of The Pages And Pollinates The Fingertips.)