Beginning Again

"If I could stop talking completely
cease talking for a year, I might begin
to get welll," he muttered.
Off alone again performing
brain surgery on himself
in a small badly lit
room with no mirror. A room
whose floor ceiling and walls
are all mirrors, what a mess
oh my God-

And still
it stands,
the question
not how begin
again, but rather

Why?

So we sit there
together
the mountain
and me, Li Po
said, until only the mountain
remains.
-Franz Wright

When I first read this poem I laughed at the part that says, "Off alone again performing brain surgery on himself in a small badly lit room with no mirror." That part made me laugh because I remember reading a book a few days ago where this crazy scientist was trying to find the cure to save his people from dying from a terrible disease and he cut out part of his brain because for whatever reason he thought that cutting out his brain would help, but it in fact made him more crazy and funny.
On a more serious note, after reading this poem several times I realized that this poem is very self-reflective of the poet itself. The part "And still it stands, the question not how begin again, but rather why?" While reading this I thought about how impacting this one part is. Most people focus on how to begin instead of why they should begin again. I think that thinking about why a person should begin again is more important of the two because the way a person begins again will start a chain reaction which will in turn affect everyone around that one person. Now we should ask ourselves not how we should begin again but why we should begin again.