on encountering a poet in the spring

I hang my head
on the far side of your seven pieces,
realizing that I have never touched the ineffable moment

(not really)

that if these are, as he said (the man who knew):
"powerful emotions recollected in tranquility,"
then I have known too little of tranquility
to ever write as you.

And I object, yes, mesh-minded, yes, with you,
to admit I write as ME... yes.

But today -
today I'm not so very, very fond of me;
leastwise,
not in this selfward-sucking way which has become my breath,
my battlement, my bane;
this way that knows so little how to love.

To see is to love.
To listen is to love.
And so today, missing your sound and sight,
I have found written pieces of you;
seven,
now seen and heard and read,
before I am to bed.

To bed, to bed, and the little tongue-tied goat-man is me...
blowing on my pan-pipe,
far and whee.

the darling buds of... March?!?