Religion, poetry have to do with the actual goings-on of the universe.
False religion, which is nothing more than magic disguised, twists the
past, present and future, builds them nearer to the hearts's desire.
False poetry does the same thing, though with less disastrous results.
It is also a world of escape, a world of literature, but not life.
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If this is so, it might seem that science can be our only salvation from
unreality.  This is true up to point.  It can indeed save us from what
is unreal, but cannot give us more than a mechanically correct universe
in place of phantasy.  It cannot tell us what life is, nor can it give
it to us more abundantly.  This is the function of poetry, but as in the
passage from the "Inferno" above-quoted, we have to look for poetry, that
is, for reality, in the most unlikely places also, in the mere sounds of
the lines, in the perverse denial of truth, and in the impossible desires
of human beings, in the tremendous castles of intellectual air that they
have erected, in the lies and sophistries which are only inverted truths.
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In the Tea Ceremony, it is the smell, the taste of the tea, the sound
of boiling water, the touch of the tea-bowl which give to the devotee
the meaning which no abstract tought, no watching of the tea ceremony
will ever convey.
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It is a mistake to suppose that in poetry we are to perceive the absolute
in the relative, the eternal, the infinite in the finite, the spiritual
in the material. (...) Our poetic life, our religious life is one long,
never-ending struggle against this tendency.
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We suppose that the body is a machine and that the soul drives it at will
hither or thither, but the reverse is the case.  Our boasted self-control,
confession and penance, reformation, conversion, salvation - all are
determined physically, in our bodies.
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"Are ye not of greater value than many sparrows?"
The answer is "no".
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The essence of all nature poetry is animism (more exactly, animatism),
the experience that each thing is "alive", not merely animate or
inanimate. (...)  Animism is thus the essence of divinity and therefore
of humanity.  Further, we are most human when we realise that not
only stones and trees and gods are alive, but even human beings are.
The highest point a man can reach is to know that he himself is not
merely alive, but 'alive'.
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Moral elements are also rejected as being generalties.  Thus haiku has
nothing to do with the Good, the True or the Beautiful.  There is nothing
good, true, or beautiful about the sound of the water of the pond which
this frog jumps into.