a night in september
I have traveled hundreds of miles
to spread my sleeping bag in this empty field.
I have watched a crescent floating overhead,
a wooden cradle on the river.
I have left the war-torn terror of the city
to listen to the wind soothing the grass
on a crisp night in September
in a new century.
I have traveled so far
for a fleeting moment of peace
in starlit sleep,
charmed, beckoning . . .
The ground pillows my head,
the sky blankets me.
dusk
The sun is going down tonight
like a wounded stag staggering through the brush
with an enormous spike in its heart
and a single moan in its lungs. There
is a light the color of tarnished metal
galloping at its side, and fresh blood
is steaming through its throat. Listen!
The waves, too, sound like the plunging
of hooves, or a wild hart simply
crumpling on the ground. I imagine
there are hunters beating through the woods
with their scythes and their tired dogs
chasing the wounded scent, and I suppose
there are mothers crying out for their children
in the fog. Because it is dusk. Yes,
dusk with its desperate colors of erasure,
its secrets of renunciation, and its long
nightmares beyond. And now here is the night
with its false promise of sleep, its wind
leafing through the grass, its vacant
spaces between stars, its endless memory
of a world going down like a stag.