<p>From <i>Sadness and Happiness: Poems by Robert Pinsky</i>:<br>CEREMONY FOR ANY BEGINNING<br><br><br><i>Robert Pinsky</i><br><br><br>Against weather, and the random<br>Harpies--mood, circumstance, the laws<br>Of biography, chance, physics--<br>The unseasonable soul holds forth,<br>Eager for form as a renowned<br>Pedant, the emperor's man of worth,<br>Hereditary arbiter of manners.<br><br><br>Soul, one's life is one's enemy.<br>As the small children learn, what happens<br>Takes over, and what you were goes away.<br>They learn it in sardonic soft<br>Comments of the weather, when it sharpens<br>The hard surfaces of daylight: light<br>Winds, vague in direction, like blades<br><br><br>Lavishing their brilliant strokes<br>All over a wrecked house,<br>The nude wallpaper and the brute<br>Intelligence of the torn pipes.<br>Therefore when you marry or build<br>Pray to be untrue to the plain<br>Dominance of your own weather, how it keeps<br><br><br>Going even in the woods when not<br>A soul is there, and how it implies<br>Always that separate, cold<br>Splendidness, uncouth and unkind--<br>On chilly, unclouded mornings,<br>Torrential sunlight and moist air,<br>Leafage and solid bark breathing the mist.</p>