Poem Representative of What I Love in Robert Creeley

We can never be complacent, no matter what we know, what we experience, what we gain or lose. Creeley, again and again, in poetry, in prose, in personage, in breath, in breathing, in breadth, argued same, perhaps never more directly than in this poem:

Life

                for Basil

Specific, intensive clarity,

like nothing else

is anything

but itself --

so echoes all,

seen, felt, heard

or tasted, the one

and many. But

my slammed fist

on door, asking

meager, repentant entry

wants more.

           (p. 19, Windows, New Directions, 1990)