If Every Time Of The Day/ Has A Poem Of Its Own Poem by Shalom Freedman

IF EVERY TIME OF THE DAY/ HAS A POEM OF ITS OWN

If every time of the day
Has a poem of its own
This afternoon too should long
To say something about itself-
But as it stretches its slow length too long
As it makes heat and light one long unending discomfort,
This afternoon says only
That even the time of day
Cannot mean much
If one does not have something
Outside oneself
To say in it.

All heat and light are emptiness now
And the overwhelming shape of brightness
Is nothing more than the stunned silence
One fears when one wakes from a bad dream
In the middle of the day and night.