In the brief day, or rather, the night
called Life,
dream how easily a speck may be distanced from itself;
and how hard also it is
to remove that same grain
from your proud eye.
Look at the lightning over the green corn
and learn the virile meaning of our lack of power
under the traveling stars.
Turn on the lights silver-electric
to see in what dark rooms you have dwelt,
yet tried to be happy.
Open and close your eyes
and feel the weird proximity of doll-like death.
Talk to the moth
and trot the eternal wheel of boredom,
tolerated by a life that cannot wait
to immolate itself on a fuel lighter
for love of the gamble.
Come near the heartbeat of an animal
and touch your own heart
to take the pulse of the planets
and experience the split-second hypocrisy of love.
Unwrinkle your bones with deep calm
and purest feeling, unfurling your reddish hair,
and you will bare your heart in all your poems.
Pity the mania of poetry
and the helplessness of its wisdom
to hope or heal or even to dare
to come down from its own shiny cross.
In spite of all,
extinguish any light at its source
and you will work in vain
to prevent its survival
in some remembering soul.