Light & Shadow_Anne Waldman

Rest you by this various planet
or lounge in the sky lounge
be my guest I'll take you there
& introduce you around & show
you in the sky ropes & the
city maps and the world as
flats a map and the world
as round as a lively face
with head & atmosphere
and the sky as breath and the river
as chant and the sun as aria
aria for breathing and for loving
aria for the dancing light & shadow
light & shadow upon the dancing globe
light & shadow on the child's arms
in a park under trees & towers,
light on the fresh canvas, the painter
on the roof of West 21st Street
under thoughtful shadow,
shadow on spoons in the metal drawer
the zebra plant yearning for light
light for the eyes of Beethoven, shadow
inside the piano, mellow now violent
shadow out of the piano, power in the
light of violon, sweet strings of light,
shadow under desk, big black boots in winter,
light through friendly words
on shadow telephone wires,
light in health & shadow in health,
illuminate moon rocks! knowledge from shadow,
light from darkest handwriting, print as light
and white paper, shadow
light from newly polished floors, shadow
in your smile under heavy lids,
light from the Himalayas, the Andes
the brightness of snow, the shadows cast by
mountains by fast moving clouds, the shadow
of stormy Arabs, lightfooted Balinese,
Cicero's light now fading, Galileo's vision,
the long shadow of Jesus, Locke's reasoning
light, Homer's voyaging light & shadow,
Aristotle, dark & consuming,
the shadow of Freud turning the century,
Goethe's elective affinities.
Newton's arrogant light,
Calvin's stoic light & stiff shadow,
poor Abelard suffering under prison's damp shadow
Socrates' wise forehead, Einstein's brain the speed
of light, Aquinas, Plato, Pasteur all
lightbulbs in the brown study, a dark laboratory
Herodotus collecting light: knowledge of
cats, Egypt's black ways & foreign women,
Dante spiraling upward to stars,
Darwin, Rousseau, Descartes all thinking
in their armchairs,
Michelangelo lifting his brush to
paint a body's shadow, contemplating
wings of light, names names once
men who walked in daily light & shadow
with light for the modern world,
without gravity, light enough to float,
without sun, no shadow,
sun on all the wonders of the world
the pyramids casting their shadow in the morning,
the buildings blocking my shadow with their shadow,
the light of sound, a KLH, a radio box, magnetic tape
the shadowy TV, sinister propaganda parading
as light, a devastated land the sun still
shines, bloodshed on the land, shadow
on the American soul, the diamond spirit
of warriors glinting in sun under evil glare,
shadow in houses when it's always raining,
light reflecting off pools of rain, shadows
of passing traffic of big fur coats, slender
shadows at the beach, a flame in a room
without electricity, shadow on the page of
Stendhal I'm reading, shadow of your head
against a stucco wall, light in the dreams
of martyrs, shadows from their fiery death
at the cruel stake, light on the crystal on
the brain, shadow at the back of the mind
trying to remember something,
shadow in the mouth, a doctor's light
on the polished light teeth, in a troubled ear,
black holes, white holes, silver bullets,
light on the edge of night,
the shadow of the moon,
an eclipse for the total world,
shadows in notebooks in matchbooks
till you open them, in the heart until it opens
to light the eyes of the person you love,
the tall shadow of people of trees of rockets
of obsolescence of plastic of neon of laser beams,
the light that turns you around
that shocks that blinds
that draws your hands up to your eyes
& you run for shadow
the light of women radiating with all
their wholeness, with soft ground-control
light, men's light of clarity, penetration,
a shiny helmet, fucking on the edge of
night, night on the edge of shadow,
the innate shadow of cities, the hidden light
of cities, the shadow in the valley,
the shadow the horse makes running,
the swift hunter's eyes darting between
light & shadow, the shadow the gull
makes, the crow, the eagle
the light glistening on the wet seals
playing on the San Francisco coast,
the shadows furniture makes
in all the livingrooms all across the world,
the shadows huts make, the light absorbed
into clothes, the women in South America
beating their clothes against the rocks
drying them in sun & sitting down in shadow,
the cool shadows of water, fish illuminated,
their colors brilliant in the glittering light
through the clear sea, darting in & out of
light & shadow, shadow from the tender plants
swaying in the tender light & shadow