I wish I were sad, sadder than I’ve ever been before,
So my heart—which is sad—could respond to these waves dying on the shore—
With a slow, somnolent, monotonous sound—
Befitting a slow symphony beginning,
O fated feeling! Sorrow wins! Sorrow will always be winning!
In half-sorrow, I stand, and watch the waves, without turning around,
Listening to their mournful, burrowing sound,
The water, dark, but the waves, hectic, and white,
As they hit the sand, the air, gray, with the coming night,
Unable to move in my sorrow, I’m aware
How I’ve always wanted to be sad, so I might dare
To be crazy and still for hours, to observe
The unfolding light in every cloud’s curve,
Nothing unfathomable, but all known
Eventually, as I look at sea and sky, alone.
But impatiently, I always feel the urge to move,
Moving on to the next thing, the only thing we love.
But besides the poet, who wants to be sad? No one.
Humiliating darkness covers the moon. I should befriend the sun.
Science has always saved me
From cold self-pity by the sea.
I once thought the moon’s phases were from the earth’s shadow.
But we see the phases, not because earth’s shadow throws
Darkness on the moon.
The moon is seen by where the moon goes
In relation to the sun, and where the observing earth is.
Night on the moon is like earth’s, not from a planet’s shadow.
My lover’s moods, or how, or if, she loves, is not a shadow of me.
Earth and moon must be dark or light, and the position of all three—
Dark moon, dark earth, and sun—determines what we see.
Love is not her or me,
It is not the earth shadowing the moon.
Love is the sun, the only light, and only love can tell if love arrives soon.
I can be sad—you made me sad—I can write poems, and crazily stare at the sea,
But also let reason—optimistically guessing the unknown—be the light for me.
