Country Music: Selected Early Poems

Negatives

Negatives This is the light we dream in, The milk light of midnight, the full moon Reversing the balanee like shapes on a negative: The chalk hills, the spectral sky, The black rose in flame, Its odors and glittery hooks Waiting for something to snag. The mulberries wink like dimes; Fat sheep, the mesquite and chaparral Graze at their own sweet speed, The earth white sugar; Two miles below, and out, The surf has nothing to add. —Is this what awaits us, amorphous Cobalt and zinc, a wide tide Of brilliance we cannot define Or use, and leafless, without guilt; No guidelines or flutter, no Cadence to pinpoint, no no? Silence. As though the doorway behind Us were liquid, were black water; As though we might enter; as though The ferry were there, Ready to take us across, —Remembering now, unwatermarked— The blackout like scarves in our new hair. 30 ...