Only Bread, Only Light

Stephen Kuusisto

At times the blind see light,
And that moment is the Sistine ceiling,

Grace among buildings—no one asks
For it, no one asks.

After all, this is solitude,
Daylight’s finger,

Blake’s angel
Parting willow leaves.

I should know better.
Get with the business

Of walking the lovely, satisfied,
Indifferent weather—

Bread baking
On Arthur Avenue

This first warm day of June.
I stand on the corner

For priceless seconds.
Now everything to me falls shadow.

Raven, Helsinki Harbor

The raven stood in a baby carriage and croaked to passersby. Her voice was a purple softness, really not much.

Something about a dingy bird is a question—where shall we work and live—or how did it come to this, a thing called “in public” standing near the ocean among balloons and pies?

Where did the baby vanish to?

A breeze rides in with its assignment. A woman laughs because she thinks she’s partly immortal.

Stephen Kuusisto

2019

Learning Braille at Thirty-Nine

The dry universe
Gives up its fruit,

Black seeds are raining,
Pascal dreams of a wristwatch,

And heaven help me
The metempsychosis of book

Is upon me. I hunch over it,
The boy in the asylum

Whose fingers leapt for words.
(In the dark books are living things,

Quiescent as cats.)
Each time we lift them

We feel again
The ache of amazement

Under summer stars.
It’s a dread thing

To be lonely
Without reason.

My window stays open
And I study late

Stephen Kuusisto

2017

Poems

Only Bread, Only Light

More by this poet

From “Dark Joys”

Raven, Helsinki Harbor

Learning Braille at Thirty-Nine

Poems

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Only Bread, Only Light

More by this poet

From “Dark Joys”

Raven, Helsinki Harbor

Learning Braille at Thirty-Nine

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