Now, have I sounded like a cultist of some sort? A yogi feeding on kumquats, grapenuts and almonds here beneath the banyan tree? Let me assure you I speak of all these things only because they have worked for me for fifty years. And I think they might work for you. The true test is in the doing.

Be pragmatic, then. If you're not happy with the way your writing has gone, you might give my method a try.

If you do, I think you might easily find a new definition for Work.

And the word is LOVE.

1973

… ON CREATIVITY

GO PANTHER-PAWED WHERE ALL THE MINED TRUTHS SLEEPNot smash and grab, but rather find and keep;Go panther-pawed where all the mined truths sleepTo detonate the hidden seeds with stealthSo in your wake a weltering of wealthSprings up unseen, ignored, and left behindAs you sneak on, pretending to be blind.On your return along the jungle path you've madeFind all the littered stuffs where you have strayed;The small truths and the large have surfaced thereWhere you stealth-blundered wildly unawareOr seeming so. And so these mines were minedIn easy game of pace and pounce and find;But mostly fluid pace, not too much pounce.Attention must be paid, but by the ounce.Mock caring, seem aloof, ignore each mileAnd metaphors like cats behind your smileEach one wound up to purr, each one a pride,Each one a fine gold beast you've hid inside,Now summoned forth in harvests from the brakeTurned anteloping elephants that shakeAnd drum and crack the mind to awe,To behold beauty yet perceive its flaw.Then, flaw discovered, like fair beauty's mole,Haste back to reckon all entire, the Whole.This done, pretend these wits you do not keep,Go panther-pawed where all the mined truths sleep.WHAT I DO IS ME – FOR THAT I CAME

for Gerard Manley Hopkins

What I do is me – for that I came.What I do is me!For that I came into the world!So said Gerard;So said that gentle Manley Hopkins.In his poetry and prose he saw the Fates that choseHim in genetics, then set him free to find his way Among the sly electric printings in his blood.God thumbprints thee! he said.Within your hour of birthHe touches hand to brow, He whorls and softly stampsThe ridges and the symbols of His soul above your eyes!But in that selfsame hour, full born and shoutingShocked pronouncements of one's birth,In mirrored gaze of midwife, mother, doctorSee that Thumbprint fade and fall away in fleshSo, lost, erased, you seek a lifetime's days for itAnd dig deep to find the sweet instructions therePut by when God first circuited and printed thee to life:"Go hence! do this! do that! do yet another thing!This self is yours! Be it!"And what is that?! you cry at hearthing breast,Is there no rest? No, only journeying to be yourself.And even as the Birthmark vanishes, in seashell earNow fading to a sigh, His last words send you in the world:"Not mother, father, grandfather are you.Be not another. Be the self I signed you in your blood.I swarm your flesh with you. Seek that.And, finding, be what no one else can be.I leave you gifts of Fate most secret; find no other's Fate,For if you do, no grave is deep enough for your despairNo country far enough to hide your loss.I circumnavigate each cell in youYour merest molecule is right and true.Look there for destinies indelible and fine And rare.Ten thousand futures share your blood each instant;Each drop of blood a cloned electric twin of you.In merest wound on hand read replicas of what I planned and knewBefore your birth, then hid it in your heart.No part of you that does not snug and hold and hideThe self that you will be if faith abide.What you do is thee. For that I gave you birth.Be that. So be the only you that's truly you on Earth."

Dear Hopkins. Gentle Manley. Rare Gerard. Fine name.

What we do is us. Because of you. For that we came.

THE OTHER MEI do not writeThe other meDemands emergence constantly.But if I turn to face him much too swiftlyThenHe sidles back to where and whenHe was beforeI unknowingly cracked the doorAnd let him out.Sometimes a fire-shout beckons him,He reckons that I need him,So I do. His taskTo tell me who I am behind this mask.He Phantom is, and I facadeThat hides the opera he writes with God,While I, all blind,Wait raptureless until his mindSteals down my arm to wrist, to hand, to fingertipsAnd, stealing, find Such truths as fall from tonguesAnd burn with sound,And all of it from secret blood and secret soul on secret ground.With gleeHe sidles forth to write, then run and hideAll week until another try at hide-and-seekIn which I do pretendThat teasing him is not my end.Yet tease I do and feign to look away,Or else that secret self will hide all day.I run and play some simple game,A mindless leapWhich from sleep summons forthThe bright beast, lurking, whose preservesAnd gaming ground? My breath,My blood, my nerves.But where in all that stuff does he abide?In all my rampant seekings, where's he hide?Behind this ear like gum,That ear like fat?Where does this mischief boyHatrack his hat?No use. A hermit he was bornAnd lives, recluse.There's nothing for it but I join his ruse, his game,And let him run at will and make my fame.On which I put my name and steal his stuff,And all because I sneezed him forth With sweet creation's snuff.Did R. B. write that poem, that line, that speech?No, inner-ape, invisible, did teach.His reach, clothed in my flesh, stays mystery;Say not my name.Praise other me.