If One Doesn't Resonate with the Beautiful, Soon She Will Want to Resonate with the Ugly Or She Already Does So

 

With noon knowledge and noon dress,

shadows, they say, grow shortest,

might even wholly wane at Equinoxes

under Libra or Aries in the tropics—

 

the way a soul might leave a body

yet still persist, linger

as rumor, recurring ring,

or like a name that tugs an ear.

 

Surely, and yet one may still ask:

in which relation to the sun,

to time, even at which hour,

at which turn of life,

 

mortals feel, even are, more honest,

less inclined to split who we are

under veneers and shades

emblazoning somebody else?

 

And as it appears to me, the hours

of the day do mirror stages of human age:

the early opening where new unknowns

beckon those alive, ready to stay curious;

 

then in mid-day, one begins to learn

what fatigue, along with entrées served,

and by evening, one tries to change,

catch up with what hasn't been done.

 

And so with evening dress and knowledge

that hearts, either jollier or melancholic,

dispense, empty into wine shops, pubs, bars—

she may sometimes take a stance,

 

and here much depends on whether with

or against the sunset, when words

themselves rise like easy-to-read fingers,

impressing seal, measure, on the lips.