Another poem to which you can easily relate
is entitled "Yard Sale," all over town people buying
each other's junk.
And I wondered how I could possibly get a poem out
of that.
A real pack rat, I don't like to give up anything,
but I was persuaded to give up a few things,
as you'll see in this poem.
But the problem, of course, is how
to get something transcendental out
of something as mundane as a yard sale.
One thing, I made reference to the night sun.
That's kind of cheating and perhaps needs a footnote.
The night sun, I think, in Mayan mythology--
well, the sun is considered a god,
of course, who, by day, goes over and shines down his life.
But at night, he goes on the other side of the world,
in the darker and more interesting part of the world,
and frolics, and has a lot of fun,
and then comes back in the morning
and behaves himself for--
while he's on this side of the world.
"Of what use is the knowledge we bring back from us,
with us from the underworld, the night sun shining on our backs.
This is the potted plant you bought me a year ago,
dead star in the ocean of the potter.
This, the wedding present you withdraw from the closet,
gold-edged book of cliches, given to you by a girlfriend.
I relent.
Go to the shed for the grimy bicycle
that, as a bachelor on Sunday mornings,
I rode out across the desert for hours.
How they gather around us.
Animals from this world gathered expectantly
around the long sleeper as he wakes from his myth,
their pale faces shining with reflected wisdom
as he lies, a corpse, a piece of amber
with a glow that goes all the way through him.