The Poetry of Joseph Zaccardi

THE NINE GRADATIONS OF LIGHT

Firstly brightness: which is given as ten to the power of ten,
and is given to mean miracles and snow blindness.
It tears at the eyes; it carries water into the thinness between air and vacuum.

And is the closest thing to God, and is of itself in three parts.

Secondly grayness: which is given as ten to the power of ten hundred,
and is given to mean the knowledge of a millennium and short sightedness.
It rends the brain; it clocks everything in its sameness.
It is as pliant as mercury, as malleable as iron.

And is always halfway between greatness and smallness, and is of itself in three parts.

Thirdly darkness: which is given as ten to the power of ten thousand,
and is given to mean eternity and the end of time.

It is without vision, without thought.
It is without voice, without sound.

And is the closest thing to nothingness, and the sum of its three parts
equals itself.

They are the absence, and the presence.
They are the void, and the amplitude.

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