WEBVTT

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A poem about writing, like a
kind of negative capability

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that you can write out
of fullness and you

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can write out of emptiness.

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And this is more out
of emptiness, which

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leads to a kind of fullness.

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"Writing at Night"

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"This empty feeling
that makes me fearful

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I'll disappear the
minute I stop thinking

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may only mean that, beyond the
kitchen window in the dark,

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the minions of the past
are gathering, waiting

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for the dishes to
be cleared away,

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so they can hustle
supper into oblivion.

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This feeling may only
mean that supper is done

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and night has the
house surrounded,

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and the past is declaring
itself the victor.

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It doesn't deny
that tomorrow I'll

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wake to find that the
usual bales of light

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have been unloaded and
distributed equally

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in every precinct, that the tree
at the corner is awash in it,

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and in the flaming yellow
coats of the crossing guards.

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This empty feeling could
be a gift I haven't yet

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grown used to, a lightness
that means I've shaken off

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the weight of resentment,
envy, remorse, and pride that

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drags a soul down.

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A thinness that lets me
slip through a needle's eye

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into the here and
now of the kitchen

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without losing a button.

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An emptiness that betokens a
town for self-forgetting, that

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lets me welcome the stories of
others, which, even now, may be

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on their way, hoping
I'll take them in,

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however rumpled they
look, and gray-faced,

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as they drag themselves from the
car with their bulky night bags

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and water jokes.

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It's late.

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Have I gone to bed, they wonder.

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And then they see the
light in the kitchen,

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and the figure who could be
me, at the table, still up,

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writing."

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