The poems contained here, however, reveal too clearly the delusions of such teleological shields. The occasion of the death of the poet's mother forces this introspection and meditation. Clark interrogates his perceptions, taking the reader close to the nerves of a man faced with the mysteries of a parent's death. These bleak insights are gained through an intensity of poetic sympathy with the subject at hand. They also are crafted with great focus and sealed with the perfection of a poet's intimate knowledge of lives that fall apart inside and out.
Light is in conflict with the atmosphere while fog and cloud shadow a brilliant sheen of snow.
The moon here is not a symbol, but a tool. It is a satellite that deflects not only the sun's light to the earth's night, it also reflects the poet's own projections, making conscious his hidden nature. The movements between light and shadow, cloud and sky, reveal the anxiety and loss of a man confronted by death. The pain of knowledge and of memory fights against the survival mechanisms of repression and forgetfulness. White Thought reveals a struggle between fear and knowledge.