Wake

 Sonnets
Aug 282011
  
I wake in dark. The air itself seems stained.
The dark appears a darkness self-sustained
By whatever of darkness must remain
Even at whitest noon. But this is not noon.
This is the dark without a shadow, without a moon;
A dark that won't stay shut in rooms;
One that follows even the ripest mood
And rots there, and will not give way to good.
This is the dark wolves build in woods
Who have no hands and whose teeth are sure.
This is the black that cancels the cure;
This the emptiest hour and the deepest hurt.
This lies behind eyes and bottoms every heart.
This it is that makes a faster beating start.

Wintering by the Atlantic

 Sonnets
Aug 282011
  
A midnight ocean and a stippled snow
Greyly perceived from a rail I know
Shared the grainy dark of here and nearer.
What water was above me seemed uncertainer.
What rolled in mist below rolled solider.

As snow and snow will in snowing meet,
What slid down danced into a wild sleet
And randomly clung, each to each, 
Resisting ocean's disassembling touch           
That undoes the individual who falls
And in that fall returns to ocean's all.
I could not tell just what my seeing meant
Nor how long soundless darkness had been lent;
There was nothing there in what was of sky,
No help of light to help say why,
Only usurpation's snow-deadened hiss
That ended each self-formed singleness
Distilled from upper vagueness and the cold.

They did not fall because they had been told.
They fell because there was nothing else to do
But fall, and this the ocean knew.