Entirely

If we could get the hang of it entirely It would take too long; All we know is the splash of words in passing And falling twigs of song, And when we try to eavesdrop on the great Presences it is rarely That by a stroke of luck we can appropriate Even a phrase entirely. If we could find our happiness entirely In somebody else’s arms We should not fear the spears of the spring nor the city’s Yammering fire alarms But, as it is, the spears each year go through Our flesh and almost hourly Bell or siren banishes the blue Eyes of Love entirely. And if the world were black or white entirely And all the charts were plain Instead of a mad weir of tigerish waters, A prism of delight and pain, We might be surer where we wished to go Or again we might be merely Bored but in brute reality there is no Road that is right entirely.