The Long Black Sun

You will think it a misprint,
an error in transcription,
that we meant to say hair or whisper,
meant to say river, road, night.
What if we lived for a day
or two in the long black sun, a display
of shape without light,
without purchase on the earth —
die Unhintergehbarkeit,
experience as the the un-go-
behind-able,
a way of saying,
life can only be known by life?
And if the sunspots were there
to fill the ears of the village
fool, the last one left grieving,
his blackened song sung beyond the terror
of sight, the night
another way of becoming human?

Author’s Note: I am indebted to the work of Evan Thompson (University of British Columbia) for introducing me to the term “die Unhintergehbarkeit” and the work of the late philosopher Hans Jonas for the notion that “life can only be known by life.”