Tryst With The Muse At An Ungodly Hour
A tryst with the muse at an ungodly hour.
The past creatively adapts to the moment
as readily as the future does. The bronze age flames
of your auburn hair, withered petals
of a fire flowering in the rain
that may be down, but not out.
The wellspring of a muse is always
the third eye of a woman overwhelmed by tears
at the approach of spring. Last night,
pink-lilac Mercury on the short leash of the sun,
Venus as bright as I've ever seen it
and nearby Jupiter dim by comparison,
Sirius southeast of Orion, then Mars,
and shortly before dawn, Saturn.
I stood for an hour at the backdoor
of the all night laundromat, out
in the parking lot behind the Chinese Restaurant,
while the streetlamps held their heads down in reverence
as if they'd all taken vows or something,
and I, cigarette in mouth, looked up
like a chimney spark in awe of a radiance
so unattainably beautiful all I aspired to
seemed merely the ashes of firefly by comparison,
a runt of light in the vastness of the fire-womb
of a busy, busy sky, while
I waited for my laundry to dry.
And the last time I can remember feeling like that
was combing my hands through your hair
as if were laving my roots in your bloodstream,
without getting my fingers burnt
walking on fire all the way
to the gibbous moon of your earlobe.
And here you are at the door again
like the red maple key
of a rainy night loveletter
that's let itself in soaking wet
to inspire me to write it in tears.
To shed my eyes like the starmaps
of last night's luminaries, to tear down
the old spider webs of the defunct dreamcatchers
hanging like constellations
at the broken windowpanes
of the abandoned houses of the zodiac.
I was on my way to the homeless oblivion of my bed
as if I'd found a heating grate to sleep on
to keep me warm for another night.
As I once saw a man in old Montreal
after a poetry reading at Concordia,
curl up on his cardboard flying carpet
as if he'd run out of places to go,
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poem by Patrick White
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