Letters Written and Not Sent

It is by whisper truer things are told.
Words have their echo when only barely heard.

Nothing gets said again.
No thought leads on to thought.
All sense is feeling then
and no infirmity.

Why can’t the night keep dark as well
the places day keeps hidden from me?
It is in black that I can tell
how deep the falls that rise around me.
Entombed I am. None can dispel
the jagged darkness that surrounds me.
Why can’t the night keep dark as well
the places day keeps hidden from me?

There is in all remembering
a surround of sorrow.
No matter the thing remembered.
Even if a joy, once recalled
it is put in a pang of yearning.

He was my guide a distant time ago
and made my world center on his view.

Desire the antidote
will keep the meanings clear.
Exalt the rosy cheek,
the sparrow and the bear.
Be subject to the dance.
Be seasonally enthralled.

How good that life is filled with tiny things,
days packed with household goods,
keys, curbs, replies, an ankle itch,
the three rings it takes to get the phone.
Lucky we are that thought and feeling stay
bystanders, stilled, while the day proceeds,
densed and hunched in its little swarm of traffic.
The night’s another thing,
but there are dreams to shield us.

remains the surest signal
of the movement of the heart.

I promise to compose in a room without mirrors
and never to use one word where none will do.

why today’s ache was once a noon pleasure.