at times a man growing old
plays with a knife
On its edge
the stars shake pitifully
Perhaps he loves this more
than anything in the world
because it can inflict
severe woulds on time
If he turns the night darker
and the silence deeper
it's because the wind
doesnt like him touching it
and because the earth is afraid
at the power of his feeling
A man growing older
is lost in all the forces
he thinks he knows everything about
and in all the hungers
that have sucked away his tenderness
It gets lonely
when the rain doesn't wet him
Lonlier too
when he can't find his way out
of this hour
where sleep
cannot reach
Memory's thousand shapes
seek him out:
an old letter
from a girl long gone
is a door
into the world of nightmares
Because he is afraid
of what he wants to bring into being
And when the man growing old
plucks a flower
he is surprised
at the little darkness
limping out of the bushes
Shadows pass through him
And on the edge of the knife
the bewildered light
merely appears to frown
at a play of fortune
it doesn't understand.
