Rainbow, Heart, Flower

Blessed to forget the rest — why, I wonder, do so many of my phrases read like epitaphs? And these stock words and images: who can count the number of times I’ve written the word peach, joy, waterfall, or blessing? Surely this means something, as do multiple allusions to madness, which seem almost to signify some kind of code, or shortcut way of proclaiming I am one with the universe, without having to try to describe a feeling that changes at every instant, as if consciousness were a rainbow, or a beating heart, or a pulsing flower. And so we have a series of hints, or suggestions, offered one breath at a time, arising from within a cemetery silence. Come in, I say, come in. Maybe I should add, at your own risk.

[ 1967 ]