Against You, Too (with new version!)

"Rage, rage against the dying of the light"
This is the way the words in the book lie.
My thanks, Dylan Thomas, for freeing me. Too
often am I stuck in sap, sickly sweet. I pine
away the last days on an arid steppe
Comforted only by this book's leaves.

The bones of the earth crunch--the sun drops like a bowling ball, leaving
no sign that it ever was. All that remains is the moon's dim light,
and the hope (so small) that when I take the last step
towards salvation, I will not stumble into a lie.
The dying of the light comes to tree, to pine.
It rages against you, too.

---

Against Us, Too

“Rage, rage against the dying of the light”
I consider the way that the words in the book lie,
and wonder how much he knew—Dylan Thomas, I mean—
about the death of light. I wonder if he knew
of the passing from visible to infrared.
Of wavelength, nanometers, amplitude.
An uncanny shift; a bloom to a bud,
a dusk to a dawn. What was he really raging against?

I don’t have the heart in me to summon fire.
I spend instead the world’s final day on an arid steppe
comforted only by the letters here assembled.
No matter how long I read, how strained my thoughts are,
the bones of the Earth crunch—the sun drops like a bowling ball,
leaving no sign that it ever was. I rise by the moon’s aluminum light,
with only the hope (so small) that when I take the last step
towards salvation, I will not stumble into a lie.
The world dips into darkness, but gathering breath,
with book in hand and hand over heart,
I cross the edge between earth and sky
and fall.

The end of the light comes to oak, to pine.
It rages against us, too.