The World Exposed to Every Tribe

Hid deep in the forest, in sacred woods
Where death is the middle of a long life,

Hermits can’t completely escape the tribes,
Since every hermit carries tribes inside,

And they can’t escape their need for safety,
Food, water, a way to keep warm and dry.

The lies told about hermits in cities,
In army encampments, down on the farm,

Is that they are dirty, lazy, and sought
To evade all responsibility—

That they thought they could escape entirely—
That their quiet now’s the quietism

Of the callous—shunning society—
Pretending to dwell outside history.

Shame on them, then. Useless fools. Vanity.
Hid deep in the forest, in sacred woods,

Alone with their thoughts and all their thoughts’ ghosts,
The hermits are not trying to escape.

Escape is what motivates the gathered
Tribes, cities, armies, villages, and farms,

In the way of all fantasies, the walls
Of whatever cell—all the walls there are.

Where there are no more walls for boundaries,
Fantasies of escape grow meaningless.

No one’s ever escaped in this forest.
But to end in enchantment is better

Than the end of enchantment, and ruined
Walls lie in the middle of a long life.