Wrote Stein, from her round world,
The year it went to hell,
The year all went to war.
She wrote that line for kids,
But hard to say, with her,
How it did not fit rounds
She wrote in rounds for growns.
Who knows? One wants to ask,
Who can say who are kids,
And what is grown, and who
Is gone, and what’s a poem?
The worlds go round and end,
One by one by one,
One at a time, and when
A group goes, they all go
By ones, and when one goes,
The whole world goes at once.
That’s just the way it is.
Just don’t ask. Please, don’t ask
Who knows or why it’s so—
Don’t quiz your own round world
With one of those damned thoughts
To which can come back round
That flat claim that it is,
And who knows why? Who knows?
