Reading an old issue of The Paris Review, I came across an interview with Jack Gilbert. This guy has it figured out, or at least, a good way of trying to figure it out:

The poem is about the heart. Not the heart as in "I'm in love" or "my girl cheated on me"–I mean the conscious heart, the fact that we are the only things in the entire universe that know true consciousness. We're the only things–leaving religion out of it–we're the only things in the world that know spring is coming.

Later, the interviewer asks Gilbert what, other than himself, is the subject of his poems.

Those I love. Being. Living my life without being diverted into things that people so often get diverted into. Being alive is so extraordinary I don't know why people limit it to riches, pride, security–all of those things life is built on. People miss so much because they want money and comfort and pride, a house and a job to pay for the the house. And they have to have a car. You can't see anything from a car. It's moving too fast. People take vacations. That's their reward–the vacation. Why not the life? Vacations are second-rate. People deprive themselves of so much of their lives–until it's too late. Though I understand that often you don't have a choice.

Makes me want to pick up and move to Italy, move to the beach, move towards some slower place. Makes me wonder about all the times I've chosen security over adventure, comfort over joy. Makes me wonder what it would take for me to make a different choice.