Excerpt from "The Why of the Wind"

We must learn better
What we are and are not.
We are not the wind.
We are not every vagrant mood that tempts
Our minds to giddy homelessness.
We must distinguish better
Between ourselves and strangers.
There is much that we are not.
There is much that is not.
There is much we have not to be.
We surrender to the enormous wind
Against our learned littleness,
But keep returning wailing
"Why did I do this?"

--Laura Riding Jackson