Temper rattles in tiredness, the skull stretches.

All the loose ends of self are sticking out,

Grudges, appetite, self-pity, intention, fear,

Any one of them to be seized and tied to any other,

Or braided to judgment and love, or cut off.

This is the rare moment, this gritting exposure

I am almost too maddened to use when it comes.

I know nevertheless the look of the long-sought.

It is when the room blackens at mid-morning,

And the door-lines go lightning-knifed, the air

Empties. Or when at night nothing will sleep

Because there is no dark. This is the moment.

It is when of next hour and next year patterned,

The tray-handle is let go, and in a slither

Of habit, plan, possession, value, and center,

The day spills itself all over the bare floor.

They talk about stage-fright, but that is nothing.

This is self-fright, self-withering, and to hell.

This is the bordering moment, time to cross over

Into a new country. The rubble of puzzle-pieces

Will never again fit together as the same picture,

Not even the same picture the better for age.

Order does not grow out of order, but from wreck,

And here I am, a new world's staggering first man,

Everything to be done, but everything I need

God knows hurled at me, ready to the hand.

And if nothing would lift and build, or change come

But by a fury of labor, do I not rage?