The experience of say first opening Othello
And being so impressed by the achievement
By the ecstatic orgy of utterance
As to miss the point
Not that there’s only one but you see glimmers
Believing involuntarily as all belief is involuntary
That this poet must be more than a human
For what human could accomplish such force
And you detect the worm of envy
Creeping up through the core of your breast
Beauty does not make you feel this way
Truth does not make you feel this way
This anger and this deep resentment
That the virtuosic performance should interrupt
The revelation that you crave
The essence which you know or hope must be there
And we seek a treasure blindly
When we mistake personality or statement for truth
When we mistake precision for beauty

But art is no object much less a function
No kernel awaits its being laid bare
For the artwork demands witness
It must germinate in the world
And grow and blossom and exude its fragrance
Charming or neutral or fatal as the case may be
And what is fragrance but an experience
An instant of pleasing melancholy
Giving way to an instant of foul disgust
Giving way to an instant of implacable desire
Giving way to an instant of dim hope
Giving way to an instant of wretched disappointment
Giving way to an instant of calm acceptance
Neither discontinuity nor sequence
Nor penetration nor interpenetration
But an ever-branching chain of moments
In one moment of transition
Engrossing a world or many worlds
Of gorgeous desirable terrifying flux