POEMS FROM THE EXACT NAME^
PHILOSOPHY
There is a place to which I often go, Not by planning to, but by a flow Away from all existence, to a cold Lucidity, whose will is uncontrolled. Here, the mills of God are never slow.
The landscape in its geologic prime Dissolves to show its quintessential slime. A million stars are blotted out. I think Of each historic passion as a blink That happened to the sad eye of Time.
But residues of meaning still remain, As darkest myths meander through the pain Towards a final formula of light. I, too, reject that clarity of sight:
What cannot be explained, do not explain.
The mundane language of the senses sings
Its own interpretations. Common things
Become, by virtue of their commonness,
An argument against the nakedness
That dies of cold to find the truth it brings
*From The Exact Name (Calcutta: Writers Workshop, 1965). Reprinted by permission of the author and the publishers^