Darkness Over the Bar

Darkness over the bar

comes as a relief

for its beauty is too much

each fresh wave of consciousness

can tear you to pieces

now below the splendid silent sun

now below the incandescent stars

in love with too much

in the ark of the ache of it

we come to understand

satisfaction is a lowly thing,

how pure a thing is joy.

—with lines by Walt Whitman, Marianne Moore, and Denise Levertov,

and with guidance by Maureen N. McLane.