DARKNESS AT DUSK

Someday, when I set down my pen,

moving slowly, you may picture

my calm steps weighed with grief.

That moment, no longer perplexed,

I’ll have paid for all my pleasures. Neither refugee

nor named for any glory,

I simply let things come:

that fir tree, this bo tree.

In silence I mark

empty stretches of the vast soul,

exhaustions of the numberless unnamed.

Serenities of murdered hopes.

Yet the veils of my nights unfurl

new life. Though my clumsiness

can’t sense spring wind,

sublimity’s the mouth

of an ancient well. Warm

beat the hearts of quick passersby.

Everything shifts, disappearing,

no lakeshore of memories.

Not even my favorite melody

can sing me through. Face left

or right? A hundred wakings

to the far off sky,

a hundred stares.

When dusk finally welcomes darkness,

its truest light, this look takes me in,

a despair exquisite,

impossible to leave. Alone

in this trance, let me be.