TREE BETWEEN TWO WALLS

Besieged between two nights,
black wells of waiting water,
day is born; whirling in the air, and in the memory
it lifts up its sword of clarity:
light's sea, sharpening as it rises,
a great glass wherein the whole world trembles and shines;
green wood that maroons the minute on the clock.

Advancing, day wears itself away.
And when it reaches the red gates,
that frontier where all permanence ends,
night preens on its fluorescence, its one great gift,
its glare: harsh river that takes wing
beating out the hypnotic kingdoms in the eyes.

There, where the impenetrable and hollow day
begins to rise, I let fall your name:
a sheaf of letters, like the sound of a wild river.
And from your name the moon and its splendid lineage rise;
an island which flares and is consumed
or a coin I hid in air.

Everything is clear, my love.
Everything is the whirlwind and the fleeing wind.
Everything questions and accuses us.
But nothing answers,
nothing rises against the journey of the day.
The sun is unwound and no longer pulses
and is a cry in the desert.