“Washington isn't a city, it's an abstraction.” — Dylan Thomas

The first poems I knew were nursery rhymes, and before I could read them for myself, I had come to love just the words of them, the words alone.

But time has set its maggot on their track.

The function of posterity is to look after itself.

Go on thinking that you don't need to be read and you'll find that it may become quite true: no one will feel the need tom read it because it is written for yourself alone; and the public won't feel any impulse to gate crash such a private party.