2. Amen of the stars, of the ringed planet
TURN OUT THE SUN
Rising like a white sheet through the dusty
window panes,
Sunday morning lights the trees through
sporadic rains,
Braids of fading fire suspended in the frozen
autumn’s sheaves
Balloons of fallen summer that blow up in
the leaves,
The trembling sleeted forest thawing silently
to gold
As heat replaces one last time the mountain
night’s new cold,
While I, in bed, try turning off my miniature light
To stop the growing sun’s intruding early height,
As if one small lamp held sway over creeping
day or dark,
As if a switch could keep at bay the season’s
weeping bark
Or perpetuate the dream of things against
the winter’s sweep
As tears last night become, today, just souvenirs
of sleep.