Poem at Night
// George Moore
This is the poem at night:
through a window perhaps
or through the mind’s square eye
possibly the darkness before the dawn
the cosmos before particles formed
the poem released from its cell
or does that come after?
This is the poem at dawn:
with its one good eye just open
and its heart in its mouth
before light rays have actually found it
asleep in the box
light that would transform it
into the crucible of the day
This is the poem after battle:
with the brain and with love
and with others who would name it
when it has been cut up
by the sword of the tongue
and these little snakes of letters and lines
that force it to submit
This is the poem of becoming:
a nipple on the thermos of the world
waiting for the right eye
to save it from the darkness of self
to drink it deep into the non verbal
to let it go in its half moon hope
toward some new impossible shape