The dusk drapes its fug, weighs on your mind
in the back seat, wound up by what you can’t see
as we wind through this darkened braid of streets.
Headlights will do what they can to help find
our way home, while you shuffle and mutter,
your head with the stars, questions that repeat
but hove unanswered in the creeping sea
of night. I’d say you’re right: whatever’s the matter
in us might well be the same matter in the sun,
each ear of corn, grain of rice, granule of sand;
in humpback whales fluking to sing the depths
of the ocean; and the ocean, and zebras,
and bluebells, and woodswallows; and perhaps,
little head, tired arms, also the moon.
When tomorrow comes remember your why? why? why?
and we’ll begin with shorelines where gulls arch
consonants in the great vowel of the sky.
We’ll walk the city, and woods, where we’ll dwell on
dewdripped spiderwebs in the sun, sprunted larches,
couples with dogs poop-scooping on the green,
tall nettles and deep coombs; so when the dark
comes you’ll have bearings with which to explore
witches’ covens, hard words, war zones, famines,
dragonheads, and the cruel laughter that bores
into your mind. This is what the night is for,
little head, speedy mind. When tomorrow comes
we’ll take in what we can from town and park.
Together we will walk through the common.
Now that night lets fall her black hair
and watches over you, wraps you in her shawl,
the day drains from you like water from sand
to leave grains of memory, sifting on the shore
of your mind. Such sands of time may fall
through your fingers, sting your eyes, fly everywhere.
But little head, tired arms, try not to dwell on
dead-eyed meanness, why the world is unfair.
I’d say in our dreamtime we woke on an island,
all of us, where there was plenty for all,
but one had a machine gun and made everyone
else slave to the bone for their thrupenny share
while he sat laughing, eating melons,
coining cruel names, fingering his weapon.
Little head, tired arms, speedy mind,
let yourself flow with the thrum of the engine.
Driving through the warpled night we can find
our way home, and then worry about heaven.
If there is a heaven it is chained to the earth
like flight to the air, a mirror to light,
air to the ground, rigor mortis to birth.
And if you could look down from the height
of heaven you would see us as loose grains
of rice, or sand, scattered and small
crisscrossed scars on the face of the earth.
We’ve been sifted through an impassable wall
we will pass through twice. That is all.