I
As if the sky could no longer hold its color,
that pale blue light sifts down onto the water
like talcum onto a tabletop, or like the fine powder
of memory settling again in the mind in that hour
toward sleep, in that season toward autumn
when the trees begin to fill with a sorrowing air.
Still, there’s a moment then when it all seems
so impersonal: no sign that something difficult
is reappearing in our lives, no image
of a feeling, but a feeling itself, like a mis
directed letter from someone sad and faraway.
II
And it doesn’t matter that in that quiet hour
you forget yourself awhile, that the sky
becomes a kind of mirror in which the face
grows dim, then disappears, like a coin
receding underwater. Even the early arrival
of the moon on the horizon only magnifies
the light’s desire to turn all things
to light: how quickly it absorbs the sea
birds drowsing on the air, although, tonight,
the evening star, like a bread-crumb dropped
on the water, is enough to bring them back again.
III
And the night is usually carried in on a breeze,
so that each time the water ripples the light
will darken, as if sprinkled with ash, and become
more fully a part of the air. But the truth is,
the light is sinking into itself, as we, in an absence
IV
of light, will sink back into ourselves—
and it isn’t a question, then, of how we feel,
but of how we hold ourselves out to the dark
when the dark closes down around us, and when,
momentarily, what light there is only glitters
in the mind, like a cluster of stars on the Sound.
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