CONTRE JACCOTTET

He says that poets might as well
Be knitting—that poetry means nothing,
Since the bare words on a page
Are not reality, are not a life.

But we don’t live very often,
Or very well. Reality is something
We touch at only rarely,
At a few unlooked-for moments.

Poetry’s more available than life—
A fallible guide to that difficult
Undertaking, written by those
Who claimed to have lived.