The appetite for reading or listening or learning—seeking out meanings—is an attempt to get beyond superficial, beyond appearances, to realize what is significant. The senses are fallible, and of course our minds are fallible, and I don’t have the belief in my ability or anyone’s ability to get very far beyond appearances, but again, I have the appetite for it . . . Like, I don’t think we ever find out what things are really like, but trying to get nearer is a hunger.
William Stafford, The Art of Poetry No. 67
