The Oldest Child in  General   

The night still frightens you.
You know it is interminable
And of vast, unimaginable dimensions.
"That's because His insomnia is permanent,"
You've read some mystic say.
Is it the point of His schoolboy's compass
That pricks your heart?

Somewhere perhaps the lovers lie
Under the dark cypress trees,
Trembling with happiness,
But here there's only your beard of many days
And a night moth shivering
Under your hand pressed against your chest.

Oldest child, Prometheus
Of some cold, cold fire you can't even name
For which you're serving slow time
With that night moth's terror for company.

By Charles Simic

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Other poems by Charles Simic:

• A Book Full of Pictures
• Against Winter
• Clouds Gathering
• Coal
• Errata
• Eyes Fastened With Pins
• Heights Of Folly
• Hotel Insomnia
• Inner Man
• Paradise Motel
• Pocket Theatre
• Poem Without A Title
• Private Eye
• Read Your Fate
• Summer In The Country
• Talking To Little Birdies
• The Bather
• The Initiate
• The Oldest Child
• The Partial Explanation
• The School Of Metaphysics
• The Supreme Moment
• The White Room
• This Morning
• To The One Upstairs
• Watermelons
• Wherein Obscurely