Against the Evidence: Selected Poems, 1934–1994

Brightness as a Poignant Light

FROM Tread the Dark (1978) Brightness as a Poignant Light I tread the dark and my steps are silent. I am alone and feel a ghostlyjoy—wildly free and yet I do not liveabsolutely and forever, but my ghostlyjoy is that I am come to light for some reason known only to the dark, perhaps to view itself in me. As I tread the dark, led by the light of my pulsating mind, I am faithful to myself:my child. Still, how can I be happy to have been born only to return to my father, the dark, to feel his power and die? I take comfort that I am my father, speaking as a child against my fatherhood. This is the silence I hear my heart beating in, but not for me. From the Observatory Each step is to and from an object and does not echo in heaven or in hell. The earthvibrates under the heel or from impact of a stone. Many stones fall from outer space and earth itself 99 ...