THE PHASES OF DARKNESS
I
Climbing the rutted path, the lights of town
left far beneath, curled in the mist; below
the blind mutterings of the sea; upon the right
mountains rising with their massive shade;
and overhead-emptied of moon or starthe sky-an inverted pit-, I found the night;
and found again what I had always knownthat when the light goes all shadows go,
and on the walls of this internal cave
the moving pictures blend and disappear.
II
I used to watch the crack under the door
for hours, lying fetus-like in bed,
the covers quaking with my beating heart,
and glimpse out of the corners of my eyes
the black closet's mouth with all its rows
of hanging men, the window glazed with dark,
fingers of trees tapping across the floor,
until the light failed and in my head
the darkness poured, tricked in the wierd disguise
of dreams, old shadows wearing borrowed cloths.
III
Before the first Word, there was the Dark,
self-shrouding in its ministerial folds
commencements of the sun, fashioned to be
the imageless imago of one face,
the world's names all curled within one name,
under one mask-all anonymity.
And still behind each sun-lit thing it lurks
waiting till the limbs tire in the rigid molds
to lift them down from crosses where they waste
into the arms from which all being came.
IV
Like jewels, against the velvet of the box
in which they lie, all objects come alive
and shine with a borrowed light, taking forms
from murky backgrounds and in translucent depths
burning the night like coal. The good know
that darkness gathered lamb-like in their arms
is their defining grace, and wise men fix
their farthest looks on worlds beyond their eyes.
It cleans the wings of swans, and makes their steps
shine on the air, although they melt like snow.
131
0
