The Sin of Pride
turns out not to be a sin at all, but in the guise
Of self-esteem a virtue; while poetry, an original
Sin of pride for making self-absorption seem heroic,
Apologizes again and shuts the door. O Small
Room of Myself, where everything and nothing fits,
I wish the night would last forever as the song assures,
Though it never does. I make my way not knowing
Where it leads or how it ends—in shocks of recognition,
In oblivion deferred, too little or too late, consumed
By fears of the forgotten and of the truly great. Morning
Brings a newspaper and an ordinary day, the prospect
Of a popular novel, though it’s hard to read. I write to live
And read to pass the time, yet in the end they’re equal,
And instead of someone else’s name the name I hear is mine—
Which is unsurprising, since our stories all sound alike,
With nothing to reveal or hide. How thin our books
Of revelations, the essential poems of everyone
Mysterious on the outside, but with nothing to conceal—
Like the stories of experience I go on telling myself
And sometimes even think are true, true at least to a feeling
I can’t define, though I know what I know: of a mind
Relentlessly faithful to itself and more or less real.
Copyright © 2017 by John Koethe. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on September 20, 2017, by the Academy of American Poets.