THE COMING OF NIGHT - SKIPWITH CANNELL

Ekim 12, 2024

The Coming of Night

(In the city)

The sun is near set
And the tall buildings
Become teeth
Tearing bloodily at the sky’s throat;
The blank wall by my window
Becomes night sky over the marches
When there is no moon, and no wind,
And little fishes splash in the pools.

I had lit my candle to make a song for you,
But I have forgotten it for I am very tired;
And the candle … a yellow moth …
Flutters, flutters,
Deep in my brain.
My song was about, ‘a foreign lady
Who was beautiful and sad,
Who was forsaken, and who died
A thousand years ago.’
But the cracked cup at my elbow,
With dregs of tea in it,
Fixes my tired thought more surely
Than the song I made for you and forgot …
That I might give you this.

I am tired.

I am so tired
That my soul is a great plain
Made desolate,
And the beating of a million hearts
Is but the whisper of night winds
Blowing across it.

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