Black

by Philip Dacey

     “My mother never let me wear black;
    now I wear black all the time.”
                                            Overheard remark

Some people dream in color,
others in black–and–white.
I dream in black;
I want to be a night sky without stars.
Each of my senses can apprehend blackness.

If black is the absence of all color
and white the presence of all color,
I want to be drained of the rainbow.
The void is black, and reigns.
If black were a tongue, it would say

in an instant, like a bolt of black lightning,
everything that is.    Those in exile,
either distantly or within
themselves, wear black
because the heart does.

A candle in the darkness
profanes your truest self.
Blow it out.    You’re a tunnel
with no light at either end,
and color’s a sentimentality, a lie.

The connoisseur of black
knows it comes in shades —
black, blacker, blackest.
Give back everything
to black.