North Light

Strict invisible wedge untaken,

Immortal interval whose slow increase

Moves with millennial patience;

Dark core in light, shadow of noon

Which defeating us lights us now:

North light: my windows that have no

Sunrise or set save by reflection;

Snow-light; leaf-light; outward, earnest

With chimneys, angled with roof-slant,

Nostalgic with skylights, and slate-stitched.

To island shingle infrequent Crusoes

Climb and repair but never stay:

Invasions unheld, foreignness too great.

North light inward: painters' nonpartisan

X-ray. Here skeletons walk

Being understood, and each thing flames-

Roses, scissors, books and table-

In generation its own sun,

Its joy self-held and emanated,

Its victory shared: individual, whole.

So, too, full-length in mirrors

Stone-naked, 35, the man

Alone between marriages,

Lustrous body entirely stilled.

My desire is for this light only

And long as it may be borne, thereafter

As often; and I know this light is

In me and the room together:

When I am not here the light is not.

Though I stand and stark mirrored

I am abased in its cold pride.

It is earned and given, both; and I

Have made first payments and got

An interest of knowledge, certain now

I work in playgrounds-so this light

May at midnight harden to a star.