Cascando

simple to touch

simpler

        if not knowing

or caring not caring

but this cascando tonight

is no answer

there are white stars

& beyond them

a dawn

a brightness

there are black stars

& beyond them

an absence

an emptiness

        if we knew again

again we can't

there is only this

a nakedness

a nakedness words won't clothe

if we grow thin grow gaunt

they'll tell us we are in love

we grow thin grow gaunt

we have no love

Dick Russell
First published in Littack, 1974, edited by William Oxley