Peripheral Considerations

1.
The sky has become the
color of horses, and soon
will fall away, leaving us
naked to the clarity of the
void, naked to this night
of slumbering universes
and deities as yet unborn,
and if this were the method
by which we were nude,
unprotected by the clinging,
false seeming that we were
great and mighty on the earth,
perhaps there would be no
wars, but only a chill and
huddling mass of us,
so small upon the face of
a tiny stone spaceship
hurtling through the
uncaring night, our only
lamp the spun-down light
from stars now long
burned out.

2.
The murmur of voices
comes to us from rooms
down the hall, rooms
often empty and echoing
in silence, but now alive
with the noises these strangers
make together, these
expressions on the face of
late afternoon, these
improvised dance steps
I imagine from my chair
but do not see, for these
voices occur on the
strange and thready
bandwidth of another
aspect of existence,
far away as Rubik’s
cubes with all their
sides in equality and
colorful abundance.

3.
Animate winds play
upon the face of these
worlds beyond our
faster windows, sighing
in unison to the
somnolent concordance
of spirits slipped free
of their flesh, busy with
their peaceful acts of
revenge, busy with
the inexplicable process
of continuance and its
intractable difficulties,
until winds dream
themselves into unbeing,
powers fading, elements
of air losing all cohesion,
until there are no windows
and no worlds beyond,
but only a gap in the wall
from which we see nothing
but the far side of the
street, itself made indistinct
by distance, and rising fog,
and nightfall.

4.
A flare upon the darkened
horizon, and thoughts of
great and dusty books full
of the fervent fantasies of
our ancestors flash within
the coiled adder behind
our eyes, hinting of lies
once believed and truths
so long denied, of movement
across the surface of
dusty lands and hunger,
but this flare is only the
stranger pausing to
light his cigarette, only
the momentary flicker of
his butane lighter and
the cherry-color afterimage
of tobacco kindling into
slow flame, and the
moment slides further
down to dusk, in no way
biblical, in no way laden
with these vast and
imagined payloads of
importance.