The dark is raising questions from the dead
Among us, for justice done
To the pain of the living, their spirit none
The wiser or quickened by
The answering stars in the sky…
For darkness does its deed
Out of need
Of silence, whose desire-quelled heat limns--
Shimmering off the rock of the moon, round
And round the earth-- and swims
In the bath of space, then
Plunges past all human time toward globes
Where, emerging in the other world, earth disrobes
In unexpected tenderness, and shines there,
All eyes upon her,
Before stepping back in the warm
Shadows where sleep, like a friend, will accompany
Her for the duration, until personally
Summoned by dawn for the day’s intricate details
(there are too many), there to form
A new pact, honored in the making, between
Tracks left in the road and the imagined journey
Made, true and awful, in obeyance as if to charms,
From solemn start to joyous finish, that the dead,
In having crossed this world,
Would be alive and well in the living’s
Outstretched and welcoming arms.
Botsford, Alan. A Book of Shadows. Katydid Books, 2003.
