THE SUN ALSO SETS

Without a bedtime story or a lullabye
the evening’s blush sinks to a deeper red
then slips into a slit between the earth and sky
leaving our goodbyes lingering, unsaid.

I do not want to go, or let you go.
I want to dare this ending, call its bluff,
delay our parting with a sudden overflow
of words—too many and yet not enough–

while you, my dearest one, would choose
blunt disappearance, the mute way
to stanch an agony—those deeper blues
along the skyline fire—as if to say

the sun rises, the sun also sets.
So let it set. Let us let it. Let’s.
.
.
THE SUN ALSO SETS

TO BEAR THE BEAMS OF LOVE

“And we are put on earth a little space
that we may learn to bear the beams of love.”
—William Blake

After all, wasn’t it the wanted thing,
this sudden basking in a golden beam,
being one on whom the sun would seem
to rise and set?  For whom whole choirs sing?

In those long hours of heaven’s opening
only to pour upon each cherished dream
bleak rain, or that grey dampening stream
of dullness, dim and witless threatenings—

what was the hope, the hap, so striven for?
Simply to see the end of suffering?  Or was it
something more?  These beams of love burn,

smooth as lasers, loosen the stuck door;
delicate, precarious gold haze fuzzes
the soul—reveals a whole world to unlearn.

.

TO BEAR THE BEAMS OF LOVE

EQUINOX

The toad shook off two snowy
eyebrows with a sudden twitch.
Mud shivered in the blowy
balm, rippled the juicy ditch.
Toad popped its eyes awake,
tapped by a warm green witch
and listened for the snake
between the lines, between
the woods and the lip of the lake.

The snake wiped itself clean
against a brand new blade
of grass, and practiced looking mean.
Scales, skin newly-made,
wet with excitement and tight
on the courage of the unafraid,
tongue flapping a small red kite,
snake kept its body low
in wait, and saved its bite.

The toad, heavy and slow
with eggs, had to cross the line
between new waters and old snow.

How could a snake pine
sentimentally for what
its gut demanded by design?

Snake brain cracked like a nut.
Coiled venom, raging spit
leapt from the rut
and took the toad, near all of it
into the mouth.  But deep
the toad moan would not fit
nor drift to easy sleep
down in the snake.  It caught high
in the maw, swimming to keep

alive.  The monster that followed
was dreadful to see, as it tried
to get into, get out of, the hollow–

a birth in reverse, blaming the sky
for being unable to swallow
for being unable to die.