The Way

by Robert Creeley

Somewhere in all the time that’s passed
was a thing in mind became the evidence,
the pleasure even in fact of being lost
so quickly, simply that what it was could never last.

Only knowing was measure of what one could
make hold together for that moment’s recognition,
or else the world washed over like a flood
of meager useless truths, of hostile incoherence.

Too late to know that knowing was its own reward
and that wisdom had at best a transient credit.
Whatever one did or didn’t do was what one could.
Better at last believe than think to question?

There wasn’t choice if one had seen the light,
not of belief but of that soft, blue-glowing fusion
seemed to appear or disappear with thought,
a minute magnesium flash, a firefly’s illusion.

Best wonder at mind and let that flickering ambiance
of wondering be the determining way you follow,
which leads itself from day to day into tomorrow,
finds all it ever finds in there by chance.