Willful Blindness

“I do not want to see what you would show.

It doesn’t fit with how I see myself.

As one small drop would cause to overflow

The lake, that would no longer be itself,

So I should have to see me in new bounds.

I will not hear but what I hear in me,

Nor dare embrace another’s foreign sounds.

Like one small note would lead the key

Astray, and shift the nature of the song,

So I should have to hear me in new lays.

I do not want to know. You do me wrong

To weigh me with the charge to change my ways.”

            “That’s well,” I say. “Narcissus the unreceiver

            Died in the lake. It’s best to leak and be a river.”