Classic Poem

Avoid, you strollers in the dark street,
You side by side touching at knee and shoulder,
You going your own way your own ways together
And who knows where, avoid these shafts of light,
These oblongs out of doorways, the thin jet
Under the window shade, beneath the shutter,
The match flame squinting at the dark, the glimmer
Between bent fingers where the old men sit—

These flashes making all things clear, inviting
To easy candor, the kind eye in eye
Of perfect honesty, the bright look meeting
The bright look: these illuminations show
Monsters. The truth examined by a flare
Grows true, grows palpable, grows everywhere.