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Since you my love have found me out
crouched in the rank hollow of dirt,
shivering like a beast in fright,
my heart has let itself be taught
by yours, the wiser; so my debt
increases as my heart grows light,

intemperate in its delight.
(By such rich skill to be plucked out
and cast into unceasing debt!)
Forsaking the old stale of dirt
to persevere as one untaught
in worldly rubric of dull fright,

I rise above myself, affright
the training-lords of dark and light
with fierce licence. So you had taught:
"make all things new: leave nothing out;
nor wretchedness, nor the scuffed dirt,
the ledger of habitual debt."

So, seasoned as I am to debt,
how is it that the constant fright
of turning once again to dirt,
of turning - *damn* it - from the light,
should so much drive my senses out
of their composed accord? Be taught,

who would learn somewhat of the taut
compact between delight and debt:
it holds; and there's no getting out
of that, although you shake with fright,
hurl imprecations at the light
that lights upon creations dirt:

you are that light, also that dirt,
and everything you have been taught -
to succour or despoil delight,
to meet with spite or honour debt -
is but the rudiments of fright,
the sentence of your days spelled out.

Renouncing fright, the heart so taught
in debt stirs from its bed of dirt
and rises to put out the light.

(1998)