Quandary of Peto

The poet is split from his poems at birth
and must spend hours regathering them
so much that he loses track of time.
Natural then that he denies the worth
of the poems others look for. Natural
that he never seems to find them all

But the poet is like branches of leylandii
tossed on the bonfire. The flames of the world
only silk screens about him, until, wild,
and past his youth, past his pools of energy,
he flares up, engulfed, and begins
looking frantically. He praises, ruins.

Why does the Peto awaken early then,
and seek with burning throat and crazed design,
saying, "All that's mine will yet be mine,"
what should be lost to him and lost again?
Because even the furnaces of history
cannot compare with the heat of the day