A Poem Called Day

Day is carved in marble, a man reclining,

a naked giant suffering.

Preoccupied Day faces Night, who is a woman,

huge, naked, Herculean, both pillowed

on their uncarved rough marble bed.

They need light to be seen, neither

has anything to do with the sun or moon.

Art is not astronomy,

but the heavens are useful as gardening to poets,

not useful as love or loneliness.

If I write out of arrogance and ignorance

a poem called Day, my chisel and mallet, words

and pen, paper my marble, I must not confuse

sunlight and Day, petals with hours. I could rhyme,

perhaps by reason and chance describe the nature of Day.

I might discover Nature is surprisingly

sometimes moral, unexpected, a principle

over which the lovers Night and Day quarrel.

In my poem, faithful Night and faithful Day quarreled;

rhyme told me they quarreled because Day is gold,

Night hates the thought of celestial money,

rages at the starless differences between cost and price.

Michelangelo did not choose to make a sculpture

Prezzo, or put the finger of God on a coin.

Day and Night saw Danaë’s legs spread apart

for Zeus to enter as a shower of gold.

They are not household gods or saints.

Better I write about things nearby,

a chair, a stool, the principle I’m sitting on.

Day is my dictionary. If my Day were animal, he might be

a baby elephant who eats leaves.

My good Day stays close to his mother,

who is murdered for her ivory tusks.

My Day is an endangered specie. I whisper

into elephant ears, peace, my darling little Day.

An owl hoots, your Day has no given name!

True, I refuse names useful to many others:

Sabbath, Sunday, Friday, Saturday.

My Day is not baptized, circumcised, or blessed.

I pick him up and hold Day in my arms.

I put my head in Day’s open mouth.

I tongue Day, and Day tongues me.

Yes, although my Day loves Night,

he tongues me in and out of bed.

My Day knows Night carnally,

lets Night know me.

So I love Day today.

And I love Night tonight.