The Grade

The Grade

Those who deprecate

routinely the labour

to raise inner and outer

(since no work’s ever

either)—these exasperate.

And they desecrate

with their small flippant flails

of simply and You just

the spirit-gym lather

reeking must

through perfumes of prescription,

the moment by moment

discipline grasped and grazed,

lost and retried

lost and retried,

to slog and lift conditions

up actual hills,

knowing the grade.