I wish these lonely people would stop talking to me and leave me alone, leave me to my work. Is there no excuse for silence? I have been waiting for a change of degree, I say Of degree. They speak to any who would speak at all, sitting weakly in their couches, muffled by the heat. I act no more their ear. I plan my withdrawal like a fool, thinking only to myself, tired of the ear, too much of the ear, but am so easily distracted. It is a spring afternoon: the sound of many birds, the people talking in the room, a mere multiplicity ashamed, begging all begged by Time and the Season.
12 May 1976