Musings on a Theme

No less steady than willows was the tide,

Rhythmic morphine soon faceless from night.

And I, alien, with each palpitating air

Assumed the memories waxing nigh—

The corners of that demarcated sphere.

Remembering then how Libra sank

Beneath the evening. How marsh waters

Fueled the tyranny of dusk; unbalanced

Tyranny, distorting what was between

The coiled self who stood there and

The vacancy in the ocean wind.

If not, how the self would have longed

For his city’s twilit steel! How, when dusk fell,

The febrile streets would turn obsidian, reflecting

In their foil the summer stars, long imbued

Of that sentient negative ocean.

And how, through the window, would darkling

He watch the moon, wonder if the self he had

Was her self, together tranquil under sheets.

Or did this hateful order split

Body from body, as eyes wonder if such a moon

Is the same for city as for silent river’s edge?

But here, while night sublimed through the trees,

I saw rivers ignite phosphorus to cry

Along the banks, zealots past the marshes,

Gnostic towards reposed salvation in

The tidal vacuum. Yet I heard

A fugue between them and the sea, watched

The evening birth fireflies in their diminuendo,

Extinguish across the mirrored west, and I knew

No angel could long so silently.