(A Metaphysical Drinking Song)
Here’s to that thing
we won’t admit!
Here’s to the omnipresent
It!
Here’s to the IT
in which we sit
and stand and walk
and laugh and spit.
It’s in every act
that we commit.
It’s our inescapable
requisite.
Here’s to the It,
our benefit
that makes the world
immediate.
It is the cloth
most finely knit.
It’s all of a piece
but composite.
It is the suit
with the perfect fit.
It always includes
its opposite.
It’s not the device
of a Jesuit.
It’s much older than
Holy Writ.
It’s no a mechanical
counterfeit.
It’s a metaphysical
hunting kit.
It’s infinitely definite
and definitely infinite.
And It’s always here
so Here’s to It!
And all It says is
Submit
to it!
(1968)
~ from Packing Up For Paradise, Selected Poems 1946-1996
(Black Sparrow Press, 1997)
