Heavy Date

Sharp and silent in the Clear October lighting Of a Sunday morning The great city lies; And I at a window Looking over water At the world of Business With a lover’s eyes. All mankind, I fancy, When anticipating Anything exciting Like a rendezvous, Occupy the time in Purely random thinking, For when love is waiting Logic will not do. Much as he would like to Concentrate completely On the precious Object, Love has not the power; Goethe put it neatly: No one cares to watch the Loveliest sunset after Quarter of an hour. Malinowski, Rivers, Benedict and others Show how common culture Shapes the separate lives; Matrilineal races Kill their mothers’ brothers In their dreams and turn their Sisters into wives. Who when looking over Faces in the subway, Each with its uniqueness, Would not, did he dare, Ask what forms exactly Suited to their weakness Love and desperation Taken to govern there: Would not like to know what Influence occupation Has on human vision Of the human fate; Do all clerks for instance Pigeon-hole creation, Brokers see the Ding—an— —sich as Real Estate? When a politician Dreams about his sweetheart, Does he multiply her Face into a crowd, Are her fond respones, All-or-none reactions, Does he try to buy her, Is the kissing loud? Strange are love’s mutations: Thus, the early poem Of the flesh sub rosa Has been known to grow Now and then into the Amor intellectu– —alis of Spinoza; How we do not know. Slowly we are learning, We at least know this much, That we have to unlearn Much that we were taught, And are growing chary Of emphatic dogmas; Love like Matter is much Odder than we thought. Love requires an Object, But this varies so much, Almost, I imagine, Anything will do. When I was a child, I Loved a pumping-engine, Thought it every bit as Beautiful as you. Love has no position, Love’s way of living, One kind of relation Possible between Any things or persons Given one condition, The one sine qua non Being mutual need. Through it we discover An essential secret Called by some Salvation And by some Success; Crying for the moon is Naughtiness and envy, We can only love what– —ever we possess. I believed for years that Love was the conjunction Of two oppositions; That was all untrue; Every young man fears that He is not worth loving; Bless you, darling, I have Found myself in you. When two lovers meet, then There’s an end of writing Thought and Analytics: Lovers, like the dead, In their loves are equal; Sophomores and peasants, Poets and their critics Are the same in bed.