Classic Poem

Oftentimes
out of the shipwreck of our dreams
we stumble into the white surf
of our brightening windows, dazed
and strangers—unsure
what place this is, even who
(or what) has been cast up
out of what abyss.

There's a hiatus then
between dreams' drift (helpless
down cells and galleries
of a vast Atlantis)
and the will's rigidities (rails
of ambition, manacles of desire)
when we feel nothing—only
the cold democracy of the dawn—blue-grey
and pale-rose light at eye-level:
We look straight across at the sun
as though we'd been raised up. Cornices
of buildings, even, are forgiven
all their old grimes; they brighten
in the beginning of the world; the drab
tramp pigeons of the city spiral di-
hedralling down its hushed spaces
like angels in an Annunciation.

And O my dear, even the mess
we have made out of yesterday,
whatever's been thrown on the trash—
whether in callousness
or cleanliness, stu-
pidity or good reason—waits
at curbs with a certain
dignity, bunched in its bilious
and black bags—a convocation
neither welcoming nor rebellious.











By permission of the author.