How Does Our Sun Compare To Other Stars

I can not live with you -

would life -
and life is there -
behind the shelf


has the key to the clerk - who puts forth

our lives - its porcelain -
as a cup -


discarded by the housekeeper -
because outdated - or broken -
like a new Sèvres -
the old cracks -


I could not die - with you -
because one has to wait
to close the eyes of the other -
you - not you -


and I - I could stay there
and see - freeze -
without my right of frost -
the privilege of death?


Nor could I rise - with you -
because your face
extinguish that of Jesus -
the new grace -


become common - foreign and
nostalgia in my eyes -
him unless you do not shine
next -


There judge - as - you
- should serve the sky - you know, or you tried
-
I do not have it done -


you saturate me, not having
I had different eyes
for excellence sordid
like heaven


And if you were damned, I would too -
sounded well my name
stronger all
fame in heaven -


and if you were - redeemed -
and I - condemned to be
where you are not you -
that my being - that would be a hell -


So far we have to meet -
you there - I - here -
only with the door ajar
that are oceans - and prayer - and that support
white -
despair -




Emily Dickinson, Poems (1862), 640


..................................

I wish it was already night, it was all over,
that between saying and doing, there was the sea;
I wish I could go a long way and see you fall asleep
finally freed from your sordid fears;
your body left on the shelf
the empty bed on the shelf
our abandoned house on the shelf
the abandoned town on the shelf in the world
left to itself, and finally relaxed.


I wish there was that day when, looking
in your eyes, I could see mirrored mine;
and blend with the azure blue sea,
and blend with the blue the blue sky
and I would see the sun in the sky
and harmony of all things in the world.


spend the night, and it would be a nice day;
a day of joy for you,
the day you'd be with me.

(Mic 05/05/2001)