Some Words to the Close and Holy Darkness

Like most people, I have not known

what to do with the stones handed

to me. I fold newspapers into tight

cylindrical rolls for the undersides

of doors. Try to stop the wind coming

through. All this carrying of beloveds

in plastic bags. Darkness is time. And

time is death and virtue and the beyond.

Today is a bedpan for collecting dust,

to scatter it around like dandelion fluff.

All praise the moon and sun, the blue-

blackness. I leave a drinking bowl

out for the shadows. A dove. Nothing

can convince the dead to embark

on the passageway back to undying.

Oh, body-dweller, do not be afraid

of the unassailable deep, the habitation

of light is filled with perforations.

On the terrace, crows swoop and dive

along the scrim of day, retrieving lost

hours from the shallows. In one room,

the going on and on of childhood.

In another, a swarm of pond sludge

moving toward your legs. I, who

once made an island of the dark,

draw close to this carnival of feathers.