Notes On An Unadorned Night
after Rene Char
Let's agree that the night is a blank canvas, a station
break, a bridge of a song.
Let's agree further that activities at night—movies,
campfires, reading by a lamp—are all
basically an homage to the day.
I have come to regard these two statements as
contradictory. Let me explain.
First, set aside that one could see a movie, torch a fire,
and read with the sun blazing over us.
The in-between aspect of night need not spark a flurry of
activity, is all I'm saying.
You could do nothing at night! Just lay and sleep!
A Cézanne sketch I looked at last night bears
mentioning.
A big Gallic face, reclining upwards, looks up at three
boxcars on train tracks.
The man's eyes are wide open and unfulfilled.
The two disemboweled deer I saw the night before also
bear mentioning.
The torsos of both deer were connected to faces, both
looking up.
I assumed they were struck by trains near the house
where I was sleeping.
Anyway, it occurred to me that as I looked into these
two dead deer's eyes that so much has fallen at
me, rather than simply by me.
I want to be among people. I do.
But I just want the easy parts skipped, for bodies to rub
up against each other, to always feel as new flesh
touches new flesh.
Those deer weren't an emblem of anything. I'm not like that.
I don't need dead animals to mirror my own interior world.
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poem by Daniel Nester
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