Pelican Tracks

Immaterial Witness

 Immaterial Witness Here’s what I’m looking for, after the harvest And the first encroachments of frost— A moon whose fire Won’t burn through the broken atmosphere But silvers the mist, my eye taking Delight in light That glows like a face of vapor, A ghost in the glass, Pale hands Wiping the wet away, polishing the dark. A few simple beautiful things— When did I ever want More than that? But this is no bell for meditation, No pillow for the dreaming head; It’s white, white as cocaine With its cold clarities. In the sweat of the bedroom window, The moon lays down A chalk outline of my body, Half-erased, drifting Like smoke from a smothered wick (In Spain, they call the cup That puts the candle out The hand of Judas).  From the sleepy side of death, The stars strike deep, Double-daggers On a chart marking the wrecks at sea. Circle of salt, It comes to testify At the injured end of night, Night soaked In serums and alarms, the sheets A poultice for parts unknown, gauze Over the sticky damages. Such ruins! Such small enormities! When the mind’s lost in midair Like a sky in the private Inertias of snow, Who would presume to muse, And on what? This moon, Immaterial witness In the tint of winter, remote As the last thought that passed through me— This moon won’t melt Even when the sun peels back The frozen levels and the freezing seams, But I will, a pool of Blue impurities, hard water worn down, In which a bird on its long flight south Has landed for a drink, and soon Lifts off again, taking some Wasted share of me Home on the tired tremor of its wings. ...