• Skip to main content

Aesthetic Realism Online Library

Home > Poetry > Poems by Eli Siegel

Poetry of Eli Siegel

It Is the Highest Prudence to Be Worthy of the Invitation Things as Rooms Give

Let there be

Invitations from everything

To the very depths of you.

The invitations now stand.

Realities are invitations.

When you were born, you were invited to something.

It is the same invitation now you have,

Only shown in ever so many ways

And all the ways are things.

Things are invitations,

The meaning of which just doesn’t stop.

Meaning is an aspect of the invitation all things give.

All meaning is a room

You can go into.

The room is charmingly indescribable, it changes so.

But it stands, it is.

Things are rooms you can go into

With profit and bliss.

The room of things is their meaning.

You are invited to this room, O wayfarer,

Among happenings and objects.

It is prudent to be worthy of the invitation,

O wayfarer, O person.

Indeed, it is the highest prudence.

From The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known #727 (Aesthetic Realism Foundation) © 1955, 1987 by Eli Siegel
Eli Siegel on Beauty
Author’s Bio
Anthropology & Aesthetics
US Congressional Record
Book Store

Stay in touch

Receive email announcements for each new issue of The Rightness of Aesthetic Realism: A Periodical, and for classes and events at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation.

Subscribe

Follow us:   

Contact Us Support Our Work

Aesthetic Realism Foundation
141 Greene Street
New York, NY 10012
tel 212.777.4490

Copyright © 1997-2026 Aesthetic Realism Foundation

MENU
  • Home
  • Periodical (TRO)
    • Current Issue
    • Drama & Acting
    • Literature & Poetry
    • Love
    • Mind
    • Music
    • Teaching Method
    • The Visual Arts
    • Archive
  • Poetry
    • Poems by Eli Siegel
      • Short Poems
      • Civil War Poems
    • Translations with Notes
    • Poets: Their Lives & Works
    • What Poetry Really Is
    • The Critical Muse
    • Critics Speak
    • A Celebration of Poetry
    • Poetry of Martha Baird
  • Books
  • Essays
  • Lectures
  • Definitions
  • Reviews
  • News Archive
    • Educational Method
    • Love & the Family
    • Art & Life
    • More Issues of Our Time
  • The Eli Siegel Collection
  • Aesthetic Realism Fdn.