A Poem: Night Fall

When the night falls,
its dark blanket,
we are a series of stars,
candles burning alone,
solitary sentinels on a hill.

Here in our heads,
we are a moving fluid
encased in flesh,
we are pushing at our seams,
that our lights might meet.

When the night falls,
there seems a river of darkness
lies between us,
that we are boats out with lanterns,
searching for hands raised.

We are ever more aware of
ourselves
against the darkness.
If we are being swallowed,
then we are falling in whole,
waiting out for dawn.

There is no hope for it then
but to ignite the more,
that our lights might make a
circle,
a bonfire even.

There is a need for you to reach
and not be afraid of
empty air.
For what is the dark
but a space empty of us?

What is the need for fear,
for loneliness?
The darkness giving way
to your weight—
the light of you.

Ana Lisa de Jong
Living Tree Poetry
November 2022

“Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night.”
~ Rainer Maria Rilke

After writing this poem I fell over this beautiful poem by Louise Gluck:

There is a moment after you move your eye away
when you forget where you are
because you’ve been living, it seems,
somewhere else, in the silence of the night sky.
You’ve stopped being here in the world.
You’re in a different place,
a place where human life has no meaning.
You’re not a creature in body.
You exist as the stars exist,
participating in their stillness, their immensity.
Then you’re in the world again.
At night, on the cold hill,
taking the telescope apart.
You realize afterward,
not that the image is false
but the relation is false.
You see again how far away
every thing is from every other thing.
~ ‘Telescope’, by Louise Gluck