I Just Wanted To Tell You This

I just wanted to tell you this.
Now you can have a restless night.

Ragged, scattered clouds
like notebook pages hastily put together
pass through the lenses of a telescope.
Each hazy cloud
which has long been lumped together with the stars,
makes its small circle in the blackness
but you have nothing left.
What could you have selected from that pattern?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Just poetry.

-----

IN THOSE WINTERS WHEN. . .

In those winters when the electricity died
And the broadcast disappeared quietly over the
Luxurious disorder of everyday buckles and clasps and powder
I sat one morning by burning candle light
And listened to the music a comb played
With a woman's hair.

The flashing little sparks crackled silently,
Almost imperceptibly,
Brightening, again and again,
The world that was only dark before.

--Jaroslav Seifert, The Casting of Bells