Prefix: Finding the measure

Robert Kelly

 
Finding the measure is finding the mantram,
is finding the moon, as index of measure,
is finding the moon's source;
                                         if that source
is Sun, finding the measure is finding
the natural articulation of ideas.
                                              The organism
of the macrocosm, the organism of language,
the organism of I combine in ceaseless naturing
to propagate a fourth,
                               the poem,
                                               from their trinity.
Style is death. Finding the measure is finding
a freedom from that death, a way out, a movement
forward.
             Finding the measure is finding the
specific music of the hour,
                                     the synchronous
consequence of the motion of the whole world.
 
From Red Actions: Selected Poems 1960-1993. Copyright © 1995 by Robert Kelly. Used by permission of the author.

Poems by This Author

Looking by Robert Kelly
Once when I read the funnies
Orpheus by Robert Kelly
Orpheus can never look back at the real woman
Science by Robert Kelly
Science explains nothing
To Her Body, Against Time by Robert Kelly
Long over, what's on the tree


Further Reading

Related Poems
Preludes
by T.S. Eliot