May Pole at Midnight

A spectrum of emotions segues seamlessly
between the poles of black and white,
transposing colors to the palette of the heart,
borrowing from foreign rainbows tokens for the eye.
(How can that be, from only black and white?)
Sunrise rapture, ecstasy, elation
exuberance and joy
happiness, enthusiasm, fondness,
and so on down that scale
all the way through dimness,
dejection, sadness and despair,
cheerlessness, depression-
tightening necklace on a choking throat
. . . to all the way coal black,
death as poets have it
and some fundamentalists.
Where did all the pretty colors go? Rainbows can catch viruses,
dementia, cancer and pneumonia
from places whence their colors came,
though we have plenty here.
Dreams there might well be nightmares here,
reciprocally as well.
Young logic may have pimples
while pleading in the ancient court,
protesting what serves for justice,
condemning the sacrifice of fair
discovering law has grown too wildly,
shrunk too much
in disobedience
of what he thought were universe’s laws
What can be blamed? Where lies the liability?
We are offended it is true:
you can drink so much you burst
and also drown in too much thirst.
What is this thing called water
in the moat between
the blackest black flecked with dandruff of the better times,
the whites a little dusty from anchoring their end of things?