It’s one of the fragile
hours. If I look
at the clock, I’ll see it
shiver and splinter. Any chance
of going to bed early will be
gone, and I’ll know that
at once and begin to pine
for the lost opportunity.
I’ll avoid that and keep the evening
intact. No use destroying
a sacred object with attention
to the restraints we keep on it.
I will stay here, in the envelope
of the moment, here in the poem.
You will say I should not speak
of the poem, that to write of it
is to cheapen the art. You may as well
ask the priest to never speak
of his office, how the presence of his God
is entirely revealed
in his movements
and in the words she speaks.
We do this for a purpose:
the writing, the chanting
are a shield against the shattering force
of the quotidian wave. Shall I never
be allowed to say that this is how I stop
the day, that this is how
transient things are made permanent?
It’s a blasphemy I won’t abide: I proclaim
that I live to stay here in the poem and deny the clock
that crushes the moment beyond remembering,
and that the bed that called me earlier tonight
is still there, still calling, will be heeded
at some point, but first
the rituals that make the present safe
must be observed.
Dark Matter 