First and Last

Each poem is always the first and
the last ever to be written.
No matter what great deeds your hand
has done, you must needs be smitten

anew with the thought that each poem
is always the first. And the last,
even, shall be fresh, bright as foam
that sprays on rocks a fleeting blast

of joy beyond what you had planned.
Let your love for them tell you what
each poem is. Always the first and
the last thing to do—no shortcut

to that feeling of coming home,
of a complete and unsurpassed
finality, in which each poem
is always the first and the last.