in part a response to Ferlinghetti’s “Instructions to Painters and Poets”
Teach me to paint the dark, the infinite
shades of the infinite dark, the basis of all
the light that is, the origin, the ink bright spark
that leaps from the great black well,
the darkling spring, the raven luck, the mother
from which the big bang sprang, the womb
of dawn, the only cloak measureless enough
to hold everything, everything in its folds.
Teach me to paint the inner midnight,
the moonless rooms, the lavish corners,
the mighty dark inside the fist, the vastness
of limitless space that links
with no effort the everything that is,
the everything that ever was, the everything
that will ever be. Teach me the song of soil,
the song of deep winter, the pure dark song
of the sea. All the dark that’s been terrorized
by light, and all the dark that’s been pushed away
and all the dark that’s been feared,
teach me its valor, its ferocity, its kindness,
its gentleness, its blinding generosity.
