Lessons in Darkness

Peter Gizzi

Those notes are fetching（迷人的）

when they touch the ear.

It's true, there are more tears

in sand than water.

"Come out and play,"

the song's refrain

in my head, my sawdust showing.

My heart, your eyes

is what the day made.

There, the notes, the song,

the besidedness to live

on Saturday, to walk out,

wanted to, right out the frame.

The sadness, gas pumps,

sunshine on oil,

that crow overhead

destroys the picture.

Everything faking it so badly.

What's so wrong about the real,

so off with clarity,

dumbfuck, shirttail-hanging

scatter-brained word.

Shattered-pane world?

The whir of the camera inside pictures

but we want the voice to lift,

don't we, across the mini-plaza

to where? How about

pulling taffy（太妃糖） for a living

or a rabbit from one ideal-ology

to another. That's the trick

isn't it, parallel lives?

You know, here a dumpster

there a Dane. On the street

I see birds, bricks, clouds

I see a friend getting into her car

I see myself in the puddle I see.

And even if we pray to remain

unabated（不减弱的）, a minor chord

can sometimes reconnoiter

the most distant thoughts

camouflaged in lace and literature.

O western wind let's not

decorate the light with roseate diadems,

plumbago（石墨） shadows in the rushes.

Haven't we heard enough

from the birds, their annual trips

and cross-talk? Listen.

The arc of a rocket

is louder than a rainbow.