WHAT WE REMEMBER MAY NOT REMEMBER US

 

1.

The clouds and the shadows of the clouds.

 

The early light, like the night undressing herself

revealing pink beneath, underneath

 

the glory and the intimacy

like early love made of arms

only arms

fingers

and the lingering promise

of something else.

 

To breathe into what is...

 

feelings dead and dry as winter branches

body poached and flattened

the sky with its glaucoma stare

the way you call yourself “I” and mean it

and want to be seen as such

as noun

as verb

as some idea which others can not see.

 

 

2.

The plain loneliness of painters.

 

Their lust for colors

and the underneath of it.

 

It was Modigliani who saved me

from the dark unknowableness.

  

It was Soutine.

It was Cezanne.

It was the yellow and the green of it.

 

And I can not tell them.

I can not tell the painters or the colors what they have done.

And I can not say what the clouds are.

 

Each shape passes me with its blues and its endless hues of white

and light and the longing which bleeds

into

the inner world.