You can’t study the darkness by flooding !t with l!ght.

Cats are known to see within the dark. Yet, if you had sight like a cat, even for one day, would you really want to see what’s in the dark?

Proserp!na

Afar away the light that brings cold cheer
Unto this wall, – one instant and no more
Admitted at my distant palace-door
Afar the flowers of Enna from this drear
Dire fruit, which, tasted once, must thrall me here.
Afar those skies from this Tartarean grey
That chills me: and afar how far away,
The nights that shall become the days that were.

Afar from mine own self I seem, and wing
Strange ways in thought, and listenfor a sign:
And still some heart unto some soul doth pine,
O, Whose sounds mine inner sense in fain to bring,
Continually together murmuring -
‘Woe me for thee, unhappy Proserpine’.
(D. G. Rossetti)

The Meaning of N!ght

For Death is the meaning of night

The eternal shadow

Into which all lives must fall

All hopes expire

(P. Rainsford Daunt, ‘From the Persian’)

Now Sleeps the Cr!mson Petal

Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;
Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;
Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font:
The fire-fly wakens: waken thou with me.

Now droops the milkwhite peacock like a ghost,
And like a ghost she glimmers on to me.

Now lies the Earth all Danaë to the stars,
And all thy heart lies open unto me.

Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves
A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me.

Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,
And slips into the bosom of the lake:
So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip
Into my bosom and be lost in me.

(Alfred, Lord Tennyson)

!Death

A great deal of our effort goes into avoiding it. We make extraordinary efforts to delay it and often consider its intrusion a tragic event. Yet we’d find it hard to live without it. Death gives meaning to our lives. It gives importance and value to time. Time would become meaningless if there were too much of it. If death were indefinitely put off, the human psyche would end up, well, like the gambler in the „Twilight Zone“ episode.

Aga!n and Again

Again and again, however we know the landscape of love
and the little churchyard there, with its sorrowing names,
and the frighteningly silent abyss into which the others
fall: again and again the two of us walk out together
under the ancient trees, lie down again and again
among the flowers, face to face with the sky.

(Rainer Maria Rilke)

As Once the W!nged Energy of Del!ght

As once the winged energy of delight
carried you over childhood’s dark abysses,
now beyond your own life build the great
arch of unimagined bridges.

Wonders happen if we can succeed
in passing through the harshest danger;
but only in a bright and purely granted
achievement can we realize the wonder.

To work with Things in the indescribable
relationship is not too hard for us;
the pattern grows more intricate and subtle,
and being swept along is not enough.

Take your practiced powers and stretch them out
until they span the chasm between two
contradictions…For the god
wants to know himself in you.

(Rainer Maria Rilke)

N!ne Postcards From Prague

I

Sapphire light mingles with deep red violet
Rolled out behind the spiky black twin towers
Like a futuristic vision.
My neck aches from bending backwards
My soul leaps forward to embrace them.
Evening comes to Prague
Like a dark, warm wool blanket
That wraps a weary traveler’s body
At the end of a long journey.

II

Tonight, walking along hard stone paths
The dark Moldau sang to me.
Her voice lifted me up from the street
Like a duet of a finely tuned violin
And a velvet throated cello
As we crossed the wide bridge
Keeping inside the dark shadows.
I watched a long gray pigeon
Quietly fly through the last ray of light
Coming home for rest
We continued searching
For the way back
To where the night begins.

III

Here, in Prague.
Store windows dazzle
With ample treasures of amber,
Garnets and Bohemian glass.
They bulge with heavy burdens of color
And ask me to return again tomorrow.
Come. Walk inside of me.
Touch. Hold. Buy.
I ask, „What is the price?“
How will I carry the large glass flowers home?
How will they look when I place them
In a thick vase
From West Virginia?

IV

At the Pyramida hotel
A small ink drawing hangs
On the wall in room 428.
This familiar artist’s style
Catches my eye again.
His drawings hang
In my Pennsylvania home.

Last year in Prague
The artist stood alone
Displaying his drawings
On Sunday morning.
A proud businessman.
I bought several.
The price was too low.

V

I sit alone
On the edge of the spiral tide
In the center of this night
My thoughts turn like a labyrinth
The ocean waves.
Soon you will embrace me
And we will walk away together.

VI

One by one
He looked at each passport
He wears two stars on each shoulder
An 8-pointed star on his chest
A gun on his right hip.
Foolish students giggle in the back of the bus
One asks if he speaks English
He asks if they speak Czech
All laugh at his joke
He is thin and young
And departs with an English „Good Bye.“
We occupied seven minutes of his day.

VII

It rains now
as we get our first glimpse of Prague
the translucent gray sky
softens the deep golden fields to mauve
distant trees turn from yellow-green
to blue wine mist.

VIII

Prostitutes take their places
along the road to Prague
they kneel down on the grass
squat low
wave at the tourists
bend forward
arrange their few possessions
in a small backpack.

IX

The late summer rains
have swept away
all our dreams.