Triptych

I

Oh! -

as when he walks alone into a big wind, his thought full of the

break-up, and suddenly stillness surrounds him, nothing stirs,

and he stands there wondering incongruously what will be

remembered a year from now; a broken wind or a broken heart...

II

OH! -

as when a vast gasp goes up from a rugby-football crowd because

a pass has just been dropped inches before the goal posts...

III

Oh? -

as when the poet discovers early that his poem is not the verbal

equivalent of an emotional experience - but rather the transforming effect of an unexpected relationship that the pen brings

to light between certain ordinary and unconnected events

(sometimes strangely linking pathos with humor) -

a transforming effect which comes about only in the final completion of what is being written....