Poem Written in a Late Style

The sun ignites the colors of the city.
The nothing of today will not be filled.

Spaniels spit metaphysics at the press,

And the blackberries are furry with mold.

A dusty industrial street, small pink flowers,

Uselessness in this utopia of use,

Planted here for that purpose years ago,

Something for your pleasure, to devour you.

The seasons come to seem a repetition

Of flowers and muck.  Listening to the birds

You are deaf to the pink and white trees

And by the time you notice them, is it still spring?

The cooler arguments linger like oblong clouds.

The intensity of the riddle sends your dreams

In another direction.  This building wears a triangle hat

And that one is a stack of turquoise blocks.

As the day melts into its opposite,

Their solid, dark facades are fringed with light.

The light is purer now in the darkness.

And the darkness is that which has no name.

Notebooks stored up with secret images,

An elegance of truths, plural and humane,

These are the pages you live to create,

And when you get it right, no longer belong to you.