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That moment when, suddenly, a truth which
only a moment ago seemed improbable appears
like a vision, certain, and is established
as a permanent acquisition, that is
the direct perception of truth, truth not
thought of as correctness but
unveiling, unconcealing, and is the work
of the rarely awakened noetic
faculty, rarely awakened, although
the poet - the man, the woman,
haunted by visions, walking
ghostlike through the world - can be,
must be, victim of the gods
angels, demons, for what is the world
opened up before us, huge,
enormous, when the curtain
that protects us, keeps us
sociable, opens, albeit
just for a moment, and we know
and ever after we possess
the pain
of having known,
and so we try
to give that moment something
of a permanent form, a form that is
by its very nature as a form, false,
and so
for our nostalgia for that truth we multiply
the falsities of the world.