The price for genius has always been great among us ~ the price for female genius, nearly unsupportable.

*****

Recorded Reading (2:31): https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/6hc90cfjejfd3vc6b9cuy/I-Think-I-Know-why-They-Stayed-Alone.mp3?rlkey=jmh3lof2qh1caf20x9s7crjj8&dl=0

*****

I Think I Know Why They Stayed Alone

I think I know why they stayed alone
Dickenson, Austen, those reclusive felt
‘Twere best completely keep themselves away
From treatment by the outside world were dealt

Which, unsuspecting their superior
Cognizance and sensitivity,
Looked harshly upon their seeming pretence
To beauty, romance and delicacy

Yet worse came from those few who did suspect
They dealing with a great one truly were,
Then to remain atop their self regard
All manner of shortcomings might infer

Writers tend to be absent-minded, too
Their focus being, as it were, to dream
Too fanciful for unaccustomed those
Who like not what is not just as it seem

Nor any more nor less — a known amount
Completely unembroidered magic by
Approaching th’ unfamiliar nervously
Prepared each moment fleet from it to fly

Perhaps in high superintelligence
‘Twere hard for such to recognize a face
Or stoop to give sufficient reverence
To those society above them place

Of course they could not bring themselves to mouth
The platitudes which most pass off as truth
When truth itself their very business were
They would not such a trust betray, forsooth!

And as to their complexity of thought
The simple this-or-that most people know,
Put to such minds, into whole schools of thought
And multiple conjectures sudden grow

Nay, without doubt it uncomfortable
Is for most folk in company to be
With one who questions inner compromise
By which they’ve lived so conveniently

So each betook her graceful self back home
Where, unlike I, were better understood
And thus, from their objectionable ways
All generations since have got the good!

*****

This poet presently lives at a fraction of her nation’s poverty level.

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