such constellations,
such gamuts of
errantry, the very
terms we're condemned
to try to think in
turn into a trespass.
But Adam, drawn toward
that dark underside,
its mesmerizing
circumstantial thumbprint,
would already have
been aware of this.
MARK STRAND
from
Dark Harbor
I
Oh you can make fun of the splendors of moonlight,
But what would the human heart be if it wanted
Only the dark, nothing on earth
But the sea's ink or the rock's black shade?
On a sumnler night to launch yourself into the silver
Emptiness of air and look over the pale fields
At rest under the sullen stare of the moon,
And to linger in the depths of your vision and wonder
How in this whiteness what you love is past
Grief, and how in the long valley of your looking
Hope grows, and there, under the distant,
Barely perceptible fire of all the stars,
