To the Romantic Poets

Yes, she is the beautiful night So lovely a night the stars get lost in her,

And yet from her wrists and lips unwind The perilous dimes lost in subways-- A spiral of effluvia We recognize as history--

The Israelites Must battle the Arabs Far from the moon's bright garden In whose center blooms The insomniac rose

And yet She is the night of beauty The angel whose name Lifts the wet grass And topples the insect gently Onto lower leaves--

Let him rise by skill Or evolution's shaky ladder To sing the gravelly song, until Whatever it is sings with us And we praise beauty for her single star--

A gravelly teardrop flung in orbit: My hands at the small Of your back.