Iām in no hurry: the sun and the moon arenāt, either. Nobody goes faster than the legs they have. If where I want to go is far away, Iām not there in an instant. (6/20/1919)
If science wants to be truthful, What science is more truthful than the science of things without science? I close my eyes and the hard earth where Iām lying Has a reality so real even my back feels it. I donāt need reason ā I have shoulderblades.
The Amorous Shepherd is a fruitless interlude, but those few poems are among the worldās greatest love poems, because theyāre love poems about love, not about being poems. The poet loves because he loves, not because love exists.
The amorous shepherd has lost his staff, And his sheep are straying on the hillside, And he didnāt even play the flute he brought to play because he was thinking so much. No one came to him or went away. He never found his staff again. Others, cursing at him, gathered his sheep for him. No one had loved him, in the end. When he got up from the hillside and the false truth, he saw everything: The great valleys full of the same green as always, The great distant mountains, more real than any feeling, All reality, with the sky and the air and the fields that exist, is present. (And once again the air, that heād missed for so long, entered coolly into his lungs) And he felt that the air was opening again, but with pain, a liberty in his chest. (7/10/1930)
Yes: I exist inside my body. Iām not carrying the sun and the moon in my pocket. I donāt want to conquer worlds because I slept badly, And I donāt want to eat the world for breakfast because I have a stomach. Indifferent? No: a son of the earth, who, if he jumps, itās wrong, A moment in the air thatās not for us, And only happy when his feet hit the ground again, Pow! In reality where nothingās missing! (6/20/1919)