Poem: "Equinox"

"Equinox"

Each morning in September, I wake up
and darkness lingers, just a little longer;
a shadow of passion from last night
that fears its own canopy of starlight so much
it never leaves unless pushed out
by an overbearing sun.

Yet sometimes the darkness,
with its celestial tenderness,
its willingness to open itself up
so man can see the endless starry portal
and re-evaluate his size,
sometimes these things make pre-dawn more welcome
than those first softly-jagged
rays of pink and blue
I try to chase as I get up for work.

Some mornings,
I'll shut off my alarm and lie in bed,
resisting Sleep's invitation
and Death's intimation,
fearing what might happen to the soul
when I've closed my eyes.
Will this be the last time my eyes are shut?
Will they open again to a deeper blackness,
to Sheol or Paradise,
Elysium or Purgatory?

I look out the window at the stars--
what few I can recognize--
and thinking about the chaos
which Hubble paints for spirits bound in earth,
and how it is only a recollection
of what may have already coalesced
or given way to newer forms
of retold myths, or myth unexplored.

Gazing up, immutability and mutation,
structure and dissolution,
erasure and creation,
time's flux and one moment
fall into place, into a dance
whose footsteps echo down the ages,
but now remain untrodden:
Waltz without meter,
Ballroom without dancers,
Paralyzed dancing,
Union annulled,
Silence where we must have music,
Galleries where we must have painting,
Altars and rites with no celebrant.

And when I look up
at the retreating starlight
and the fading Venus,
and that little inkling of the cosmic order,
I feel myself moving slowly towards the door,
and I say to myself,
"I'll go for a walk."