“Life Itself”

“But you don’t know Life,” they are always saying. I wonder what it is they mean? They mean humanity and the urge of it: In the beginning and in the end the soul’s longing to be known, to know itself, and to know others; And that means, in the beginning and in the end, the quest for love; It is the ideal of love and the finding of it; And the magic of it and the drain of disillusionment; And the luxury of sorrow and the voluptuousness of suffering; And the vacuum that is beyond death; And the conviction that ideals are better than reality; And the decision to live for “art”; And the pull to new love ... And the discovery that love is enslavement; And the breaking from it; And the courage to contain life; And the emancipation from something; And the complacency of first freedom; And the emptiness of it; And the pull to new love ... And the discovery that rapture is not relived; And the conviction that passion is not love; And the dedication to “the spiritual”; And the pull to new love ... And the deepest agony, which is unrequited love; And the realization of people; And the discovery that the world is wrong; And the glory of rebellion; And the emancipation for something; And the pull to new love ... And the birth of cynicism; And the conviction that rebellion is futile; And the discovery of one’s self; And the dedication to one’s self; And the discovery that one’s self is not big enough; And the pull to new love ... And the knowledge that love includes passion; And the sense of rich growing; And the hope of sharing growth; And the longing to be known; And the relinquishing of that longing; And the discovery that perfection does not last; And the sufficiency of self-direction; And the completeness of freedom; And the longing to know the human soul; And the pull to new love ... And the relinquishing of that longing; And the discovery of the peace that is in nature; And the realization of the unimportance of man; And the knowledge that only great moments are attainable; And the hatred of consummations; And the realization of truths too late to act upon them; And the acceptance of substitutes; And the pull to new love ... And every human being knows these things.

“But you don’t know life itself,” I am always saying. I wonder what it is I mean. I think it is something wonderful like color and sound, and something mystical like fragrance and flowers. And something incredible like air and wind, And something of grey magic like rain; It is faded deserts and the unceasing sea; It is the moving stars; It is the orange sun stepping through blue curtains of sky, And the rose sun dropping through black trees; It is green storms running across greenness, And gold rose petals spilled by the moon on dark water; It is snow and mist and clouds of color, It is tree gardens and painted birds; It is leaves of autumn and grasses of spring; It is flower forests and the petals of stars; It is morning—yellow mornings, green mornings, red mornings, gold mornings, silver mornings, sun mornings, mist mornings, mornings of dew; It is night—white nights, green nights, grey nights, purple nights, blue nights, moon nights, rain nights, nights that burn; It is waking in the first of the morning, It is the deep adventure of sleep; It is lights on rivers and lights on pavements; It is boulevards bordered with flowers of stone; It is poetry and Japanese prints and the actor on a stage; It is music; It is dreams that could not happen; It is emotion for the sake of emotion; It is life for the sake of living; It is silence; It is the unknowable; It is eternity; It is death. And only artists know these things.