Domination of Black

The place is not a mood, nor a limited state Nor act of spring, it is black, The look of the rain And the ponderousness of the night. Not fixed by the blackness The body in the heat, Translating the dark relative of sorrow—

Like the hinterland of the night, It soon begins to be light. The ocean rests beyond the sea’s edges, The feather of darkness may fall, Lifting the perspective here Where all of us pause in light.

• Wallace Stevens