The woman is not just a pleasure, nor even a problem. She is a meniscus that allows the absolute to have a shape, that lets him skate however briefly on the mystery, her presence luminous on the ordinary and the grand. Like the odor at night in Pittsburgh’s empty streets after summer rain on maples and sycamore.
Jack Gilbert, Collected Poems
female, human-condition, life-and-living, male, man, men, mystery, presence, woman, women