Come, wind, in your nakedness,
to the esplanades of asphalt.
Blackness waits in a white light for you

to waken the dust in the whirlpools
left by trains. We share the blackness
of nights, you and I, the vitality of creatures
trampling upon the plains, the heightened
melancholia

from the abysses of men. You improvise
daily along the toll roads. You are a genius
of improvisation, the consistent denominator
of odd days and even. You are a woodcutter

incising the air’s soft grain. The wings of a
peaceful valley contained in two sunbeams.
You stir the inchworms that dangle from
beech trees like tiny humans. You are the

whisk broom in the desert, the night-bird,
its umber alighting in the ghostly gray tulle
of winter’s branches. All eyes focus on you.
You are a mime in the days of darkness,

clinging to an orb of light.