Learning

...If I knew enough it would all be gradual,
every departure, every arrival,
small radius, in, out, returning,
like the needle’s eye always learning.
       But it is late, it is always late.

Worlds can swerve while I stammer;
the stars come different at night and nearer.
I can’t learn even how to enter
what awaits me every year.

       And it is late, I know it.

~William Stafford