"Some Enchanted Evening"

Teaching Marianne Moore's "The Mind Is an Enchanting Thing" and Wallace Stevens' "The Idea of Order at Key West" ("Arranging, deepening, enchanting night") made me remember this more modest prose-poem (of mine):

Some Enchanted Evening

                                 for Ron Padgett

light

silence

unfolds

I am making a list of words never to use in a poem. Now I am taking a mental picture of it to send to my folks. The next thing to do is develop. The outcome is clear, with a good background (the family tree). And now for the envelope. Its mental flap unfolds with surprising volume. "Silence!" says the librarian. "More light," whispers Goethe.