All you have to do is open the window
to let the night in: then moths
effervesce in a stream
towards the lamp, then the cool air
that blows between the blackbird and
the bat, air that blues the whole world
lets itself in, the whole world
stared at so intently even in the dark
by the baby marguerites growing
straight out of the rock walls,
white, pink, fuchsia, with yellow bristled centers.
What do daisies see with their feathery eye?
Not the night air though it blooms, too,
because it wants to be seen. It borrows the moths.
Half-asleep, but never asleep, I see
what they are: perched tightly together like carnations,
a fidgeting corsage of little engines. Or words
the lamp knows how to translate from
the teeming night. That’s what I ask for next, God,
that’s why I’ll let myself sleep:
translate me.