"...when dragged into prominence by half poets, the result is not poetry, nor till the poets among us can be "literalists of the imagination" — above… - Marianne Moore

TO A GIRAFFE
If it is unpermissible, in fact fatal
to be personal and undesirable
to be literal — detrimental as well
if the eye is not innocent-does it mean that
one can live only on top leaves that are small
reachable only by a beast that is tall? — of which the giraffe is the best example — the unconversational animal.
When plagued by the psychological,
a creature can be unbearable
that could have been irresistible;
or to be exact, exceptional
since less conversational
than some emotionally-tied-in-knots animal.
After all
consolations of the metaphysical
can be profound. In Homer, existence
is flawed; transcendence, conditional;
“the journey from sin to redemption, perpetual.

My father used to say "Superior people never make long visits."

... The world's an orphan's home. Shall
we never have peace without sorrow?
without pleas of the dying for
help that won't come? O
quiet form upon the dust, I cannot
look and yet I must. If these great patient
dyings - all these agonies
and wound bearings and bloodshed-
can teach us how to live, these
dyings were not wasted.