The Sun
By Dan Chiasson
There is one mind in all of us, one soul,
who parches the soil in some nations
but in others hides perpetually behind a veil;
he spills light everywhere, here he spilled
some on my tie, but it dried before dinner ended.
He is in charge of darkness also, also
in charge of crime, in charge of the imagination.
People f*cking do so by flicking him
off and on, off and on, with their eyelids
as they ascertain their love’s sincerity.
He makes the stars disappear, but he makes
small stars everywhere, on the hoods of cars,
in the ommatea of skyscrapers or in the eyes
of sighing lovers bored with one another.
Onto the surface of the world he stamps
all plants and animals. They are not gods
but it is he who made us worshippers of every
bramble toad, black chive we find.
In Idaho there is a desert cricket that makes
a clock-like tick-tick when he flies, but he
is not a god. The only god is the sun,
our mind, master of all crickets and clocks.
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