The picture is crooked by just enough
That you’d need a level to tell.
Every adjustment skews it a little bit more
This is starting to feel just like hell.
If it’s low on the left, now it’s high on the right,
Or it could be the other way around.
If we can’t seem to find a way to agree,
Maybe the piece should just come down.
But we like it’s aesthetic, that much is a fact,
Though we can’t really explain why.
One thing is for certain, we want it displayed,
We just both feel it has fallen awry.
So I’ll push, and you’ll pull, and we’ll stand back and sneer
At the other’s well-meant intentions
As it goes from one extreme to the next
While neither of us pays much attention,
To the fact that the picture itself is what really matters,
Not how it sits on a line.
The whole Earth is slanted on its own axis,
And even beauty is crooked sometimes.

I just read Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion for the first time this year. When I got to the end of Hyperion I did something I rarely do. I usually buy all my books used as sort of a “thrill of the hunt” thing. I bought The Fall of Hyperion new… out of rage. I demanded to know what was going to happen next, because without knowing I couldn’t tell if I loved or hated the fucking book! I then read through The Fall of Hyperion as fast as I could manage.

Now I can say, without a doubt, it’s one of my favorite books I’ve ever read. And yet I’m still not sure I am willing to go forward with the Endymion books.