royal road

If the interpretation of dreams is the via regia to the unconscious, then the interpretation of poems takes the same wondrous road to the unknowable.

no know

And yet after my knowing "ah-ha,"
the poem retains
an everlasting je ne sais quoi.

what one cannot know

In every note of his music Stravinsky celebrates the unknowability, the darkness, that lies at the heart of nature, asserting through his intuitive and even partly unconscious perception…a fact that is becoming more and more apparent in our own time…To know that there are things that one cannot, and even need not, know is to be able to live once more in a world of rich and varied meaning.

—Christopher Small, Music—Society—Education (1977)