The Room

In the terrible light
Of morning, birdsong
Is just an utterance.

Knowing nothing
I feel nothing as if
My soul had been turned off

At its familiar root.
Magpies and blackbirds
Cackle and the room

In which I live
Responds to memories:
Come to me, come to me.

I am not a lover
But have loved
Another whose smile

Outlasts memory
To this point,
The room in which I live

Darkened to a disappointment,
A fallen thought, an improbable
As in the light of day

The moon's face is ridiculous
Like the letters I wrote -
Those letters and these poems

Given over to a personal Jesus
Whose only answer is silence,
Silence and a blackness

Rearrainging circumstance
In absentia as the light trawls
And all dawns mingle

Into yesterdays.

John Cornwall

If you've any comment on his poem, John Cornwall would be pleased to hear from you.