There is within me a harmony, a balance, and I thank my Gods for it. It is certainly not a pleasant consonance, but it is some kind of order, and that is better than chaos. I need it here, for I live far from cities, far from what has come to be termed civilization. I don't need these cities anymore, for I have my own primitive civilization here in my head. I have also my own icons and my own chapel. These help me through the shimmering transition into madman that comes perhaps every fortnight. Yes, it is best that I am here, away from other forms of madness, for I am shy as a wolf.  I am not ugly. In fact, I am fairly young and reasonably attractive. The only obvious abnormality in my appearance is my white hair. I am no albino, but my hair turned completely white when I was only seventeen.

(There was an experiential reason for this sudden whitening, but it need not concern you.) My fingers are long and tapering. So are my days.  Why do I tell you these things? Well, why does one do any particular thing? We try so hard to find reasons for all our behaviour, but reasons are just the lies we tell ourselves to keep order in the universe. Still if one insists on being "reasonable," it is more so to inquire of me as to why I wrote these poems. (And this permits me to tie a knot.) I wrote these poems because my hair is white and my fingers are long and tapering. And that, too, is why I tell you these things. You see, this is magic: The primitive, magical belief that this sort of information will somehow make my poems more comprehensible. This is what critics call the “biographical fallacy”.