Dark Time

Snow all day until

the sky is falling

stasis-time mounting up

like the ice in windy swirls,

in spiraled, barred or elliptical

galaxies across the window glass;

and the dim caul of air

like that star cloud

in Sagittarius, so dense

it blocks our view to the center

of the Milky Way.

And so

I finally have hours to do

nothing but settle back

and remember what it was

exactly I used to be

so obsessed about-what went

climbing out of my heart

pure as the purple flames

of bougainvillaea up the sun-

bleached stucco of my youth?

But my mind draws blanks,

like one of those radio dishes

in the deserts of New Mexico

that's trained on the deep

and abstract heart of space

on a day when only static

interference is skimmed off stars.

I should be tracing out

thoughts like the scientist

at a telescope during "dark time" -

those nights when the moon is down

and the least heavenly body

ignites on the photo plates-

the lost spark and slow burn,

flotsam of matter's first wreck still

blasting by the floorboards of time.

He plays dot-to-dot looking for

a little linkage, some new move-

ment across the firmament's

held breath by which he might

name the unknown, say

it's a shiny grain smaller,

somewhat like the light beams

we've divided down to quarks

and neutrinos, all these small

threads coming loose off

the long sleeves of the dark.

But I sit here passive

as any receiver, silent

as the cogwheels of the void

grinding blindly away, barely

vital as that dust and star-floss

lifted just enough into our air

so we might appreciate the light.

I think I like it better

the way Aristotle had it-

all the planets pushed around

the perfect earth by angels

on concentric crystal spheres,

everything self-referential,

parochial as the blue.

Even the Egyptians, the Chaldeans

and Chinese saw stars as little lamps

set out at the same distance

from the earth, though each

deciphered different animals crawling

in the light's bare bones.

Memories are often like this

group of asteroids discovered

bumping about the belt

between Jupiter and Mars;

darker than anthracite, no brightness

goes out from them as they bob

and weave among ice and refraction,

tear away and are known only

by a bulge in the force fields

around planets or moons.

And staring now out this grey

glass, I catch on my reflection

and recall that time when I was 12,

the cabinet mirrors on each side

of the bathroom sink tilting

out enough so I could see

my face duplicate and recede,

framed smaller back to a pinpoint

in space until I closed my eyes

only to hear in that darkness

the unconscious march of Latin

drilled into my brain, the ancient

certainty of the dead proclaiming

new and conquered boundaries.

But, when I opened my eyes,

I saw the same rainclouds

that kept me in all day, holding

there like dull frescoes on a wall,

like thumbprints in ash-only

a remote glimmer of intention

behind the confines of the sky.