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