"The sound of one hand clapping is . . the author says:
We must enable the reader to reach the deeper meaning of this poem — the
futileness of the single hand clapping, or the single mind thinking . . . that there is no mind that can think alone, since it must be given the materials with which to think, first by creation, and second by the great generations of thinkers who have wrestled with the problem of language and expression and prayer for all the centuries before we, ourselves, pick up the same task.