ALONE AT THE NEW YEAR
Time is what they do.
–John Koethe
An instant of awe, then, afterwards,
A kiss blown into the dark on a dark
Street finds the man guttering
In his own doorway, a low candle
Low as the old year. Among the hazards
Of change, eternity is poorly attired.
Embarrassments out of mind come to mind.
And Father Time shoots the moon.
An instant of awe, a recurring festival,
A calendar of suitable costumes—things
Gather momentum and end just as I begin
To understand them. Given a good saint,
I could rhyme adagios and archipelagos.
Given a bit of auld lang syne, I’d kiss you back.
Allow the street its dark allowance, lady.
At Walsingham, permission prowls the moon.
Come to think of it, has anyone, in this moonlit
Nursery of a world, ever (apart from Plotinus,
And from Augustine at the very end) looked
Into an empty calendar and seen a friend,
Favoring and assisting, putting a sharp edge
Onto his resolutions, tuning his bells and noises?
When I was a hellion I lived a dozen lives.
It can only be God’s justice that I have none now.
An instant of awe on a girl’s nude shoulder
Lapses into theory, a willfulness
Empty of eros, empty of novelty.
Meanwhile, the girl disappears into a slam.
New Year’s Eve whitens the television screen,
Old flesh onto new flesh onto none.
It is Augustine’s trinity noising
Backwards. What use is knowledge without awe?
“None at all,” says Solitude. And he should know.
A kiss blown into the dark falls short and into
The hazards of a dream life, eternity
Poorly equipped and under no management.
The debris of sexual encounters
Cries out to Walsingham. We’ve heard it all
Before, but cannot ignore it. The nakedness
Of the old year never gets old.
Sleep is a covering cherub
Distinguishing among the insatiable
Phantoms. It assigns to each its derelict
Province of the dream and of the moon entire.
At spacious midnight, the horned moon somehow whitens
The venetian blinds and a new year begins.
Wakefulness sings a little on its way
To bed. O hear the little hymn of the rooftops.
An enormous darkness bends down, I would say
Lovingly and with a whiteness behind it,
Peering through the moon. Rooftops disappear
Into the sky, hymning a sleep without horizon,
Music without a planet to its name.
Allow this dream its little allowance,
Lady of archipelagos, once a girl.
Favor and assist these fading bells and noises.
