5454. NEVER KNOWING

NEVER KNOWING

I read Hart Crane one night long ago  -  on a wharfside

dock long past the White Horse Tavern. I was thinking

of the sea and it just hit me  -  that forlorn feeling about

sad men and lonesome sailors and what-care-I for any 

of that? Hart Crane, for my heart's crane? There wasn't

any ringing meaning there for me  -  it wasn't in the

personality, just rather in the words. I stood as tall as

God for the reading : the final cascade, the Bridge,

and all that tunnel into day stuff. I loved; I hated, all 

at once. I was alone but I held crowds back  -  the 

sublime tunings of my hands, the caterwaul of the

Long Island Sound and the Carribean Sea all together.

Once, once, long ago we died; and once long ago

we each arose again  -  as timeless and limitless

poets, as inner Gods of the kingdom we guard.

Never knowing. 'The apples, Bill, the apples!'