The Gradual All

The clear-water light of autumn is first
to go. Then, the detailed particulars:
the late sun on brick, the frost-feathered pane,
the aster blooming in the auburn field
of feed corn, blur as if poorly erased,
replaced by dishwater light of old snow.

Since the dark cloud shadows have come to stay,
squirrels run on air between telephone poles,
four dark birds, starlings or grackles or crows,
hover like distant un-moored ellipses.

And remembering Monet won't help you.
When he tired of the Rouen Cathedral,
grew bored with the hazy dim shadow-browns,
he'd feed his eyes lemons or coiled roses—
    all manner of vivid, articulate things.

Now you can't get close enough to your own skin
and the paint of the world will not stay in place,
and each morning more of the night remains—
bleeding in, clouding out the needed lines
and when those lines dissolve....

When the streams of your eyes have flooded their banks,
holding your panic is fine art enough
and, regardless, you cannot see to run.

Copyright © 2003 Eliot Khalil Wilson All rights reserved
from The Saint of Letting Small Fish Go
Cleveland State University Poetry Center
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission