At the end of his life, Ezra Pound observed to a friend: "Nothing really matters, does it?" Today I understand this. At the end, or close to the end, or closer to the end than the beginning, the value of what we once thought mattered is lost to us. Even survival, once so important, money, food, family, country, accomplishment, recognition, fame, even: Pound was right. He once said to Allen Ginsberg: "At seventy I realized that instead of being a lunatic, I was a moron."

—Doris Grumbach