Here’s another great poem by Mark Strand, from his “Dark Harbor” collection. (Remember, breaks between stanzas will be set off as three dots, since for some reason this wordpress program doesn’t recognize extra spaces at the end of lines.)

VIII

If dawn breaks the heart, and the moon is a horror,

And the sun is nothing but the source of torpor,

Then of course I would have been silent all these years …

And would not have chosen to go out tonight

In my new dark blue double-breasted suit

And to sit in a restaurant with a bowl …

Of soup before me to celebrate how good life

Has been and how it has culminated in this instant

The harmonies of wholesomeness have reached their apogee, …

And I am aquiver with satisfaction, and you look

Good, too. I love your gold teeth and your dyed hair —

A little green, a little yellow– and your weight, …

Which is finally up where we never thought

It would be. O my partner, my beautiful death,

My black paradise, my fusty intoxicant, …

My symbolist muse, give me your breast

Or your hand or your tongue that sleeps all day

Behind its wall of reddish gums. …

Lay yourself down on the restaurant floor

And recite all that’s been kept from my happiness

Tell me I have not lived in vain, that the stars …

Will not die, that things will stay as they are,

That what I have seen will last, that I was not born

Into change, that what I have said has not been said for me.