That inescapable animal walks with me, Has followed me since the black womb held, Moves where I move, distorting my gesture, A caricature, a swollen … - Delmore Schwartz

That inescapable animal walks with me,
Has followed me since the black womb held,
Moves where I move, distorting my gesture,
A caricature, a swollen shadow,
A stupid clown of the spirit's motive,
Perplexes and affronts with his own darkness,
The secret life of belly and bone.

O your life, your lonely life
What have you ever done with it,
And done with the great gift of consciousness?
What will you ever do before Death's knife
Provides the answer ultimate and appropriate?

As I for my part felt in my heart as one who falls,
Falls in a parachute, falls endlessly, and feels the vast
Draft of the abyss sucking him down and down,
An endlessly helplessly falling and appalled clown:

This is the way the night passes by, this
Is the overnight endless trip to the famous unfathomable abyss.

Time is the school in which we learn,
Time is the fire in which we burn.

(Calmly We Walk Through This April's Day)

I no more wrote than read that book which is The self I am, half hidden as it is From one and all who see within a kiss The lounging formless blackness of an abyss. <p> How could I think the brief years were enough To prove the reality of endless love?