Our love has chosen its appropriate gesture
Which when viewed in the midst of all the gestures
It didn’t choose seems almost insignificant.

The gesture our love has chosen is appropriate
We both agree not that we have any choice but
Amidst all those others does seem insignificant.

Is it incumbent on us thus to therefore obliterate
All of the gestures except this insignificant one
Chosen by our love for its own no doubt reasons.

It is up to us to obliterate all other gestures
Though they cluster round thick as presentations
Of war and sacrifice in a gradeschool classroom.

Use of our love’s chosen gesture for the obliteration
Of all those foreign gestures is forbidden however
We must find something else to erase them with.

Our love has chosen its appropriate gesture
Which when viewed in the absence of all other gestures
Seems to spell the opposite of insignificant.

Analysis, meaning and summary of Bill Knott's poem Lesson

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