NOX

I am become night
after closing my eyes
knowing there is nothing after
except the unfinished dark
that expands between islands
of slowly extinguishing stars.
From those infinite stretches
down to the ground made invisible
I am everywhere at once,
without beginning, without end.
All the other senses collapse
in this thick cloud of unknowing
where even memory wanders
towards the distance and disappears.
I become night perhaps
by looking too long straight
into an unblinking sun
into the eye of absolute light.
That is night’s one dream,
an image of what I am not,
without clear edges or lines.
If I looked into a darkened glass
would I see the body of a black swan
or an ebony peacock displaying a fan
with myriad eyes, all shut,
or some feathered predator
with talons and a sad, human face?
Or empty mirrors showing empty mirrors?
Fear is not the darkness
but the jagged tear that starts
exposing a bleeding horizon,
like a red, recent wound re-opening.