Why Are Your Poems so Dark?

by Linda Pastan

Isn't the moon dark too,  

most of the time?  

And doesn't the white page  

seem unfinished  

without the dark stain  

of alphabets?  

When God demanded light,  

he didn't banish darkness.  

Instead he invented  

ebony and crows  

and that small mole  

on your left cheekbone.  

Or did you mean to ask  

"Why are you sad so often?"  

Ask the moon.  

Ask what it has witnessed.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/41918/why-are-your-poems-so-dark

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