Nothing gold can stand
apart from any other; the sunflowers are trafficked
by birds, open to bees and twilight,
implicated, alert: fire longs to meet itself
flaring, longing wants
a multiplicity of faces,
branching and branching out,
heads mouths eyes
wishing always to
double their own heat
Which is why the void can make nothing lasting:
the fuse resides in the yellow candling up, signaling,
and the concomitant yellow hurrying down to meet it,
and nothing that is fixed
can call its double down from heaven;
the gold calls to the gold
in the arc and rub,
calls itself in the other,
which is why
the corona'd seedhead flashes the finches down.
- Mark Doty, from "Fire to Fire" (2005)
