This is from Dark World, a 1974 book by one of my favorite American poets, Hayden Carruth (also editor of my favorite American anthology, The Voice That Is Great Within Us); Dark World has an epigraph from Rabbi Baruch of Mezbizh: “What a good and bright world this is if we do not lose our hearts to it, but what a dark world if we do!”
STEPPING BACKWARD
I waken and
lean and look out
to see the darkness
flee,
sunken westward
over curving earth,
departed
like the long ocean
running in tide
so fast and far
it can never return
or darken
this wide shore.
The last green star
dies
and the trees
lean in their green leaves
westward
as if in yearning
and then they straighten.
I rise
from my window
thinking now
the new words I must say
as I step backward
into day.
I wasn’t able to comment before this, otherwise I would have said….Thank you! in your comments.
And wow, great new site, man! It’s so pretty and I’m so jealous!