background image
the white boat 67
was the air the day
Stravinsky died,
the sparkle gone).
At 3:00 a.m. out of bed
with a belly-ache, see
no moon, only how dead
white are the red
bricks of the entry, how black
a roof-post shadow can be.
Darkness comes on. My 65th
birthday nears in the dark
of the year, dark of the moon
too: dark I have never feared,
but liked even when small; e.g.
getting warm under heavy
covers in the icy room,
sure of the coming on
of sleep, as I lay alone
in the familiar silent dark
upstairs. -- Truth is, with you
though, moon, I can get into
diffi
culties: have sometimes a
nagging unease at fi nding
myself in your presence, have felt
more than once terror
at your full white face, can
be resentful at the
thought of your thin light
diluting the dark; dark
that Homer called the holy dark.