Back, when black was good, before it turned
itself into a word meaning darkness,
not blessed darkness, but cold, disguised-
what care I took to shield you from light.
Back, when black was good, the great panic
we feel from a midnight ocean, its perfect, invisible
surface we call the unknown, did not exist-
we moved sightless, fearless, headlong.
The moth is not enchanted by the flame, instead
instinctively charges through it towards darkness.
The human life, its passage lit by artifices of shine-
the sun, the moon, the stars,
finds solace in its nebulous ending.
