WHITE SOLITUDE

In calm of sleep,
lunar calm of luminous silk,
the night, as if it were
the white body of silence,
lies sweet in that great space.
And loosens
its hair,
the lavish foliage
of poplars.

Nothing is alive except the eye
of a clock in a dark tower,
uselessly fathoming infinity
like a needle in the sand.
Infinity,
revolving on the wheels
of clocks
like a car that will never come near.

The moon carves a white abyss
of silence, socket in which
objects are corpses
and shadows alive like ideas.
And one is frightened at how near
death is, within that whiteness,
at how beautiful the world is
in the age ofthat full moon.
And the sad desire to be loved
trembles in the aching heart.

There's a city in the sky,
suspended and nearly invisible,
whose restless profile
in the clear night shines transparent,
like rays of water on a sheet of paper,
in crystal polyhedral shapes.
A city so distant
its absurd presence is disconcerting.

Is it a city or a ship
we'd leave the earth in,
silent and happy,
so pure
that only our souls
would survive the full whiteness?

Suddenly an errant
tremor cuts the calm light.
The lines are undone,
the great space turns to white stone,
and in the melancholy night
all that remains is the fact of your absence.