I'm sure the poet behind it felt it. In the morning, before dawn,
I entertained the notion that art is a constrained, infallible deity,
Capable of wringing the most creativity possible from each of us,
Absolutely determined to do so, but no more. Art thus orchestrates
Each existence, portioning out whatever amounts of success and suffering
Maximize our creative output. When humans, say, Rimbaud, Plath,
Yield the most from sensing and approaching an early doom,
Doom them. If plaudits or a long life could create more, better,
Give them that. Poverty to those who make the most of it.
Neither hesitate to goad Monet with a lottery prize if that's the ticket,
Nor ignore the mediocre. Art does what it can to get what it can
From us. Only once it's got as much as we've got to give does it get
Indifferent, letting a Wordsworth dawdle on to nothing, and who cared?
In a tiny circle of ruined Mormon settler houses cut from ancient sandstone
Compressed of more ancient dunes and recently begun to be blown back
To sand again from crumbling surfaces, I sat and watched the desert light
Stretch like a great, tawny saber-toothed cat, contented until it was extinct,
And then I drove home in the dark, unaccompanied, so I wished to think.
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