A poem has secrets that the poet knows nothing of. It takes on a life and a will of its own. It might have proceeded differently — towards catastrophe, resignation, terror, despair — and I still would have to claim it. Valéry said that poetry is a language within a language. It is also a language beyond language, a meta-medium — that is, metabolic, metaphoric, metamorphic. A poet’s collected work is his book of changes.