This Black Crevasse of Night

In this black crevasse of night,

when every dark wing

of grackle, crow and raven

appear to take silent flight,

as if I’ve paddled into the black

waters, far from the strand of dusk,

and dawn is a distant, mythic shore,

in this dark turning of summer,

when an invisible, black heat

suckles liquid from my skin –

I’ll soon be a parched mummy –

each night a silent decay begins again;

the things of the world molder

in lightless cellar recesses.

No wonder this night is for sleep,

an escape from inevitable, vast,

dark distances between silent stars;

in this black crevasse of night,

when all is sluggish and wilting,

the strongest steel begins to rust,

brilliant colors of the day fade:

electric, yellow goldenrod,

violets of thistle and clover,

the patinas of green, dulled

like tarnished copper roofs,

the jewel of Queen Anne’s lace,

a clouded ruby eye.

In this black crevasse of night,

the dew silently settles on webs

and grasses; not until morning

will I applaud the dark spiders,

quick trapeze acrobats,

under silvery circus tents.

Only the frogs’, the crickets’

and the few, remaining cicadas’

crooning is raucous in the silence,

in cattail and dark, bulrush speakeasies;

they sing for fleeting pleasure

in the few nights before the frost.