Light of Night

When night comes like lightning
I watch until it pools like rain.

I listen while it flows in the cracks,
filtering through the soil
and seeping into bedrock.

I let it climb like ivy
up the bark of old trees,
the night flora feeding
on a growing silence.

The canopy closes.

The soil alive with insects
that harvest dead tigers.

There is no hand to hold
as you feel your footing on this island,
no compass that can discern north
in the darkness.

Crying that you were far
I held to you in that cave,
my voice foreign to my ears.

My library of dreams becoming
a ruin in my old hands.

This strange fever
of night and day,
the hollow sound of clocks
as I try to stay awake.

Watch the darkness move.

Thoughts as far away
as birds that sail in the midnight sky.
I watch each known thing
become strange again.

I see your face,
your eyes in this wild country.

Illuminated by fire,
a portrait that moves like a river
hidden by great trees.

Drunk with pain you tied knots in the dark,
trying to hold earth.
Your fist opens like a flower,
the world ten thousand miles away.

Our months disappear into seasons,
wood worn down by our leaving.

To repeat ourselves
is our curse and our joy,
to grow wheat again
where wheat has died.

Can you feel the wet earth,
can you feel the grass growing
under our soft feet?