the most harrowing time i can't express.

I've meant to tell you many things about my life,
& every time the moment has conquered me.
I'm strangely unhappy
                                         because the pattern of my life
is complicated,
because my nature is hopelessly complicated;
& out of this, to my sorrow, pain to you must grow.
The center of me 
                              is always & eternally
                                                              a terrible pain—
a curious wild pain—a searching
beyond what the world contains, something
transfigured & infinite—I don't find it,
I don't think it is to be found.

It's like passionate love for a ghost.
At times it fills me with rage,
                                 at times with wild despair,
it's the source of gentleness & cruelty & work.


Alice Notley