It has always seemed to me that poetry enters our lives by way of astonishment hugging stealth. This is different from simple persistence: much of comedy depends on the aggregate absurdities of postural beings who live in a high gravity world. But poetry is another matter: poems are in part a demonstration of steadfast attention, a childlike idea that if we stay long enough in the old boathouse, and peer down into the water with enough hopeful attention, we will see the old turtle who lives in the shadows of the pilings come out like a sorcerer from the woods. And when he appears at last like a mobile and dark piece of crockery, we know that patience, forethought, and the beautiful absurd are all the same. I have always thought of this as comedy raised to a higher dimension, analogous perhaps to the playing of three dimensional chess. Or simply chess by Marcel DuChamps rules. Have it how you will.
Planet of the Blind 