There and Not There

Late October, looking west from Chelsea, tonight’s sunset is particularly iridescent.  I see the sky, and the Hudson River, and planes in their landing pattern at Newark Airport, and Dan Flavin untitled at the Dia Art Foundation, and I look through the stories of the new building and pretend it’s not there, and I think of this poem, one of my favorites.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Evensong by Peter Kane Dufault

Last night when the sun went down

and the light lifted up— it was levered

off the last high land westward

through tier after tier of cirrus

and cumulus cloud,

all the way to the zenith— such

a finale of auroral cold fire

no one could speak here. We stood

like pillars of salt looking after it

a long while till it faded

into grey and dark-grey. Oh,

how do we survive it, how

do we survive, when more than we dared dream of

is given for no reason, and for no reason

taken away.

(From On Balance-Selected Poems 1978)