From “The Perch”

I climbed up
to the perch, and this time looked
not into the distance but at
the tree itself, its trunk
contorted by the terrible struggle
of that time when it had its hard time.
After the trauma it grows less solid.
It may be some such time now comes upon me.
It would have to do with the unaccomplished,
and with the attempted marriage
of solitude and happiness

from a poem by Galway Kinnell, More Selected Poems, 2000

Galway Kinnell is one of the foremost American poets of the the century. Like only a few rare individuals, his is a hermetic wisdom. It is all encompassing, real unto itself, needing no further explanation. Who of us does not know and weep inside at the truth of our own personal trauma – that time when we know what has not been accomplished with the life we have led.

How can I meld my need for solitude, my fear of loneliness, and my very
American demand that I also be ‘happy’.

Just knowing that we all wrestle therein is to be remembered.