Night Vision

Last night Rem Koolhaas's building burned in Beijing. Pictures of bystanders watching the new building burn put me in mind of this poem by Robert Burmer, a poet and musician here on the Island.

NIGHT VISION

Some nights, certain nights
a frightening clarity descends.

When roads and faces,
remembered - reflected,
arc as neutrinos
through each turn of the eye.

Where the heron walks on ice
as its cry leaves a track on the moon.

When our bets are called in
but cannot be covered,

And lovers appear,
hair streaming
down desert back roads
no longer imagined.

Flesh or dream,
it does not matter.

Our birth cries form
as ashes on the waves,
bending the light
of a younger star.

Robert H. Burmer