BRILLIANT DARKNESS
…as in the night when there is no moon
I must have known it once
- Robert Mezey (“I Am Beginning to Hear”)
Or rusty bucket leaking starlight upside down,
pinholes to the lasting sun near heaven once
high in the granite where chilly air turns crystalline –
we were but boys, young mountain men
around a fire. But even then, I must have known
beneath that thin thimble of the old ones, must have
overheard their voices when I faced blue tongues
upon the coals. Tamarack, bold tamarack, ever
listening from the rock beneath the snows.
One is playing upon the lute, another braiding
rivers into a knot, making small talk in our dreams
and then remembers to lift the lid near dawn again –
bell mare restless in the cold. I must have known it
then, and now confined by time, awake into black space
for the familiar voices, sweet idle chatter leaking in.