this night

this night, she has

whittled me to my bones

and not cleaned those, left me to dry

in the starless night and the stars

who do arrive, late, always are far

to this vainly warring heart of molten glass

that churns in my chest,

for the earth to change and for us to

finally say that we are infinite

is the champion’s charge

to wage forever ’gainst the ’gulfing guard

that threatens to survive beyond us

if we are not the trembling mountains or the quivering moon,

or the frail tide who bleeds ever over the sea

who shakes and is silent in the night, the night of all

cores and cusps, the murderous, the vacant night,

whom I do not fulfill

in my dying or my days

that rise or descend unto the dreaming floors of madness

where I may know her, where

I might understand her light, were she not

just so mercifully indifferent

I would not love her, this

resigning queen of quietus

who burns alive; and within

I know her and beyond

I join her; and in martyrdom

we sing for her, as the tremendous silence

that is her body

wraps its legs about us

and quenches the flame.

06/09/2015

Vancouver