I.
The darkness tells
no tales, outruns
the sun, and hides
its light in song.
We sing all night,
its light for us
to share alone.
II.
The Gathering
The window frames
the darkness. I
open and listen:
.
In the moonlight shadows
gather, beckoning
me to follow.
This time
the moon smiles on me
and holds me in its light.
III.
Moon Time
her gift her fire dying in my arms
her body rising until nothing
but the bloom of sighing
herself to sleep and flying
IV.
The more profound
the night, the less
there is of who
we are, then
are born again
in the morning light
and try again
to do things right.
V.
To sleep, perchance to dream
The mountain hangs on the moon
And gathers clouds about her
And vanishes. The moon
moves on, taking us
deeper into the night
we love.
VI.
Tonight there is no moon --
All you hear is the rain,
the leaves in the wind,
The arrow's breath
Before you kiss
And die
Like day and night,
Night and day.
VII.
We met when raw desire
first flowed like fire
through the dark fullness
of simple night. We met
in the play of wind and wave
upon an unsung shore,
where rack and shell
called out the time to come,
the time that's now
and will always be
and be no more.
Before there was love
Or hate, our names were
Inscribed in every sigh
in the golden harvest
of our first night.
You came to be
as I lay dying, barely
breathing, ready
to be born again
and praise the light.
What do I do to sing like you?
Be born again and sing the blues?
It’s not the same. There’s another song
In the song you sang, buried with you
In the cold hard ground. The Earth
To the moon now sings for you.
VIII.
Quiet falls like leaves
Like night, the wheels
That turn the stars stop
There is no you, only
The sound of birds
Nesting in these words
So quiet they must be true
IX.
When we turn
with the moon
to the dark side
and see through
closed eyes,
we see the night
as it is, turning
on an axis of light
inside the scattered
dust of us.
X.
It's lonely out here among the stars,
To be stretched out across the sky at night,
Yet for a poet who makes the darkness
Other than what it seems, it is home.
We love the darkness for its light.
XI.
Traveling at Night
He tripped and fell
and there came wolves
and owls, a rattle
of bones as the moon
looked on, an old man
with a tale to tell.
XII.
All things that burn -
the stars, the diamonds
in your eyes, the bird
perched now inside
my mind and sings -
return to the darkness
from which they come.
Without that darkness.
there'd be no fire
or anything at all.
Praise the burning.
Some call it tragic,
I call it love.
XIII.
Awake at Night
I thought I had slept
All day and night
And the sun had died
And I’d no longer ache.
How wrong I was!
I was like a toy
With which no one
Plays, though
Always there to tease
Or play help me please.
Through all the day
And every sleepless
Night, you're not here..
I wrote this poem
some time ago.
Despite what it says,
what once was written
on a random page
enchants me now,
though nothing's changed.
I still lie awake all night,
but there's a difference.
XIV..
If you were here
all aflame in the evening light,
If you were here, running
through my fingers
like tall summer grass,
If you were close upon me,
curling like a wave
on a moonstruck shore,
(so much like my beating heart)
we could make all things right.
And though I know
your eyes divide the night
to hide away the tears,
If you were here,
If I could, If I may,
I would share with you
a broken heart.
XV.
The Loneliest Loneliness. Who knows himself and does not know the loneliest loneliness? Who has loved, been loved, betrayed love, risked love, sold their body for love and does not know the loneliest loneliness? It is always there. It slept while you slept and woke when you woke. It is what you will be after you have died. It is what you were before you were born. Dost thou not remember? Dost thou not know thyself? You shall know that loneliness when the mirror you hold to trace the lines of your age becomes only memories. The Other will come and ask what you are staring at? And you will answer, truthfully. Nothing. Nothing at all. What will you do then? Let us sing a song of the night, of the darkest night, that is so passionate and true that the darkness itself becomes beautiful:
Out of the night comes love;
Out of the night comes the darkness of your eyes;
Out of the night comes the body of the world;
Out of the night come the larger and the smaller light;
Out of the night comes the leaf to the branch;
Out of the night comes the weyard wind.
