—I AIN’T NOTHING BUT TIRED AND BORED WITH MYSELF

  

 

Why Are Your Poems so Dark?

         

Isn't the moon dark too,

most of the time?

 

And doesn't the white page

seem unfinished

 

without the dark stain

of alphabets?

 

When God demanded light,

he didn't banish darkness.

 

Instead he invented

ebony and crows

 

and that small mole

on your left cheekbone.

 

Or did you mean to ask

"Why are you sad so often?"

 

Ask the moon.

Ask what it has witnessed.

 

-- Linda Pastan