The passing of years
As we enter the gray —
The shedding of tears
(Allowed only a day),
The mending of love —
Is below and above
The light and the dark,
A singing meadowlark
Whose eye can’t be seen
Through eyelid screens,
As the daylight retreats
And tomorrow repeats.
As if nothing has a color
And tomorrow is an absence —
Our one emotion is dolor —
A period is a sentence.
Why do we dream in black and white,
Fugal shapes dipped in clouds and ink,
In word-concatenations think,
And in zebra characters write?
Art starts with paper or canvas,
Both white, but proceeds to darken
As hours of inspiration pass,
Approaching black with brush or pen.
These poems reduce ordered paint
To something both more and less faint.
Most of my dreams are black and white,
A sickly world lit by moonlight.
Golden wheat under setting sun
Igniting quickly fades to dun,
To dim, to shadow, then to black.
A full moon won’t bring colors back.
Night is no dream, but serious.
Even if it hinders vision,
We can’t become delirious —
We’ve no excuse for misprision.
Fear is something other, the end
(Not of meaning or misreading,
The touch of warm flesh, or needing)
Of sight only the sun can mend.
