Ink Splattered Dreams: October 2010

Saturday, October 2, 2010

the night did not call out you. why did you go then Porphyria?

For Browning...

She left the light and warmth of home...the clouds threatned...the wind tried to pull her back...there were stones in her path...the moon tried to warn her...the candle would soon go out too...but Porphyria...why did you go outdooors that night?

A Large Number. Wislawa Szymborska

Four billion people on this earth,
but my imagination is the way it's always been:
bad with large numbers.
It is still moved by particularity.
It flits about the darkness like a flashlight beam,
disclosing only random faces,
while the rest go blindly by,
unthought of, unpitied.
...
My dreams—even they are not as populous as they should be.
There is more solitude in them than crowds or clamor.
Sometimes someone long dead will drop by for a bit.
A single hand turns a knob.
Annexes of echo overgrow the empty house.
I run from the threshold down into the quiet
valley seemingly no one's—an anachronism by now.

Where does all this space still in me come from—
that I don't know.