Sole Blessing

To say screw them, to be screw-them bent on one thing all but lost, one music or mystery, beyond all the necessary incidental snaggings of the heart; to train the whole soul’s beam on a solitary hill, or on it a special kind of rock or creeper; to be sated just by saxophone; to want nothing but your eyes lifelong to study Scottish otters: the snub, slippery-whiskered snout; the way they intertwine in threes at play, indistinguishably bound, long sleek backs submerging away... To make of this your being’s aim, its joy, and know by pulse and viscus the word joy. No gifts but thine to thyself: thou canst, if thou list, single out, make good, one wish. This from the dumb lips of an old god who with one endless, misty hand holds out to us too much to love, and with the other—crooked-fingered, crazed with veins—some nights and days.