"...the Stock Exchange scribblers forget the chalk in their hands
and men with bread in their pockets leave the Greek Club:..."
The author introduces the poems with lines like this to show the complete and total acknowledgement that everyone has for the situation at hand. For example, Stock Exchange workers always are doing their job, since the market is in constant motion, and rich men tend to stay excluded in fancy places. However, when the event happens that the poem will later describe, things fall out of their normal pattern.
"Religions are poems. They concert
our daylight and dreaming mind, our
emotions, instinct, breath and native gesture"
The beginning lines of this poem tell that it will go on to show unique views on the world, considering that many people do not consider religion to be a poem. However, this stanza captures the attention of the reader and will likely draw them in to read further, since people tend to look out for new ideas.
"Trees, planets, rivers, time
know nothing else. They express it
moment by moment as the universe."
While talking about what life is all about, the narrator is saying that everything besides us seems to know it. Since they are so deeply connected to the universe, they can better understand (even if they do not have a brain to realize it) the 'sequence' that seems so important to our existence.
"Full religion is the large poem in loving repetition;
like any poem, it must be inexhaustible and complete
with turns where we ask Now why did the poet do that?"
In a last bit of irony, the author decides to mention this, which fits in with the rest of the poem, but was not expected. Talking about how a religion with many ideas behind it may seem a bit like one of those long poems that isn't boring, but is a bit repetitive, we see that religion contains the same storyline question, "Why did that happen?"
