You will know
a million things
by the time you are
twelve, a million more
by eighteen, another
half million by thirty.

By the time
you are fifty,
you’ll have boiled that pile
of things you’ve known
down to near nothing
and kept from that only
a small heap.

Trust me on this:
what I have known
hasn’t helped much.
What I have felt
has mattered more:

that I am
mostly ego, sick ego,
one hardly ever fit enough
to call myself sane;

that I need to be alone
to feel complete,
but I do need One
to be close by.

Also:
when I speak like this of myself,
it’s called “art” by some
and “foolishness” by others.

You can hide
a lot of yourself
in either of those.