“Who can tell us—poems, do they only predict or do they, God help us, construct our future for us—summoning from the teeming multitude of possibilities within it that one, which they name? And if this is really so—if we, blind maniacs, program our own lives in advance, pleased as punch at how cleverly we’ve written it all down!—and thus make our lives what they are, then this is a truly frightening gift, Lord, like a bomb in the hands of a five-year-old—and how does one pray to be released? Who (what) writes through us?”