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The streetlight
Apr. 8th, 2015 08:07 pmOut the night window
flakes descend in a beam by the high wall
pink under mercury vapour
a few crystals caught in the naked act of falling
their motion harried by a press from above:
a world of others still hidden in darkness.
What have I to do with streetlights?
I’ve always had snow
crisp and grey beneath a country night.
Lately I’d escape the hot house,
to crunch through silence along the lane.
But such solace was not enough
without a peaceful bed
so I’ve fled to this apartment.
Alone at midnight I watch snow spark, vanish
and join the slush along an oblivious gutter.
The last bus passes. The groan reaches my ears
but the fall of snow makes no sound,
not the muffled, moving stillness of a rural night,
only silence of an empty city room.
Yet its falling swells.
Sudden, still quiet,
the soundless storm closes
obscures the few that flock the light
fills the window with rushing, dark white.
washes the whole spectacle.
My eyes draw cleanness
from the night.
~
This is a new revision of a poem I wrote on Jan. 23, 1996. Over the previous year I had come to the realization that being gay was not a sin that I needed God to take away, but part of who I was. My marriage was collapsing. About a week before I wrote this, I had left our house in the country on my wife's request and moved into an apartment. I still loved her and wanted to be with her. In my mind, it was a temporary separation to give us both time and space to think. But in the few days after leaving, I realized how toxic our relationship had become. She didn't love me or want me back, and I was gay. I was losing my church and all of my friends.
On Jan. 20, well aware that I was starting life over from scratch, I had sex with a man for the first time in more than 12 years. I was 31. In a way, this was my coming-out. I had not kept my homosexual feelings secret from anyone close to me. I could never have managed a double life. However, I had been very homophobic. Religion had provided me with community and shielded me from needing to interact with any gay people. So this was my coming-out to myself, the beginning of accepting and taking responsibility for my identity.
I was writing a lot of poetry at the time, much of it better than I can write now, probably because my feelings were so raw. I pulled this one out of archives as one of the first I wrote after the separation. Also, I still vividly remember the images in this poem. In my mind they have remained symbolic of my isolation and hope at that time. The original poem, titled "First snow", was a lot more opaque. Probably I didn't fully grasp the meaning of my own words, but it was there. In rewriting it, I've added more narrative, and made it more direct without changing the imagery.
flakes descend in a beam by the high wall
pink under mercury vapour
a few crystals caught in the naked act of falling
their motion harried by a press from above:
a world of others still hidden in darkness.
What have I to do with streetlights?
I’ve always had snow
crisp and grey beneath a country night.
Lately I’d escape the hot house,
to crunch through silence along the lane.
But such solace was not enough
without a peaceful bed
so I’ve fled to this apartment.
Alone at midnight I watch snow spark, vanish
and join the slush along an oblivious gutter.
The last bus passes. The groan reaches my ears
but the fall of snow makes no sound,
not the muffled, moving stillness of a rural night,
only silence of an empty city room.
Yet its falling swells.
Sudden, still quiet,
the soundless storm closes
obscures the few that flock the light
fills the window with rushing, dark white.
washes the whole spectacle.
My eyes draw cleanness
from the night.
~
This is a new revision of a poem I wrote on Jan. 23, 1996. Over the previous year I had come to the realization that being gay was not a sin that I needed God to take away, but part of who I was. My marriage was collapsing. About a week before I wrote this, I had left our house in the country on my wife's request and moved into an apartment. I still loved her and wanted to be with her. In my mind, it was a temporary separation to give us both time and space to think. But in the few days after leaving, I realized how toxic our relationship had become. She didn't love me or want me back, and I was gay. I was losing my church and all of my friends.
On Jan. 20, well aware that I was starting life over from scratch, I had sex with a man for the first time in more than 12 years. I was 31. In a way, this was my coming-out. I had not kept my homosexual feelings secret from anyone close to me. I could never have managed a double life. However, I had been very homophobic. Religion had provided me with community and shielded me from needing to interact with any gay people. So this was my coming-out to myself, the beginning of accepting and taking responsibility for my identity.
I was writing a lot of poetry at the time, much of it better than I can write now, probably because my feelings were so raw. I pulled this one out of archives as one of the first I wrote after the separation. Also, I still vividly remember the images in this poem. In my mind they have remained symbolic of my isolation and hope at that time. The original poem, titled "First snow", was a lot more opaque. Probably I didn't fully grasp the meaning of my own words, but it was there. In rewriting it, I've added more narrative, and made it more direct without changing the imagery.
