Chiaroscuro

Chiaroscuro

Squall line hangs in the north, verga or deluge

Unknown, but the dark weight presses down.

If there is only light, then there is no light,

Everything blind and everything the same.

Only when I looked down hyperventilating

Into the depths of boyhood lakes did I see

That the mud of the bottom was the place

Where lilies and lotus sank down their roots

And only by giving over to that blackness

Is it granted to float in the sun all summer.

Only when my father had a mass big as a

Baseball removed did I get the endoscopy

And in the boundless floating sedated mind

The luminosity of pink shown forth in glory.

And only because you held a place for your

Son’s demonic voices, drugged insomnias,

For five years through the long long nights

Are the clouds parting for him to shine again.